Strange Days and Stranger Nights
by makkakaus
Summary: A self-insert who's main priority is to survive, whose morality is as straight as a double rainbow, who is literally thrust into a war at the physical age of ten and has more mental issues than the hair ties that she keeps on losing. And she thought university was hard. SI OC, third shinobi war and onwards. A series of interconnected stories, not in chronological order.
1. Flesh and Blood

**Warnings:** Um. Mentions of flying limbs? There's no descriptive gore (or what I consider gore, and I'm pretty squeamish) but most of this chapter takes place in a war. Stabbing, fighting, killing. People dying, although no canon character death. Yet. It's possible. Cutting. Self-insert fic for those who don't like that kind of stuff. And I'm 80% sure there's going to be slash/yaoi/gay romance/love between two men/whatever you want to call it in future chapters. I'll let post the exact pairings when I decide.

If there's anything on that list you don't like, please hit the X on your upper left or right corner (or the back button, or type something else into the url bar just gtfo) with my blessing and don't leave a review :D

**Word Count:** ~12.5k _holy crap that's the most I've written for anything future chapters will definitely not be this long_

**Disclaimer:** This will only be here once: I don't own Naruto, although I own Naruse Hibari and any other characters that don't show up in canon Naruto. I'm not doing this for any profit, etc. etc., please don't sue me, if the original owner of Naruto calls me up and tells me to take it down I will.

Let's get this out there now: this fic is my attempt at a semi-realistic Naruto self insert fic, but mostly, it's for my own entertainment. I welcome advice and constructive criticism but to be honest, I'm not looking to actively improve my writing skills yet. This is just a stress-reliever, and I don't want to become stressed out from this. Also, I promise all A/Ns will be significantly shorter in future chapters. Also, potentially subject to a title change.

**Summary:** A self-insert who's main priority is to survive, whose morality is as straight as a double rainbow, who is literally thrust into a war at the physical age of ten and has more mental issues than the hair ties that she keeps on losing. And she thought university was hard. SI OC, third shinobi war and onwards. A series of interconnected stories, not in chronological order.

Unbeta'd right now. Any volunteers for future chapters? Note: Requires extreme patience. I'm extremely sporadic. It's fine if you just want to do it for a chapter or mini-arc or two.

* * *

**Strange Days and Stranger Nights**

_Flesh and Blood (War arc: 1/3)_

_(In which Naruse Hibari goes to war and somehow survives.)_

Naruse Hibari has been lauded as a prodigy since her birth, with her abnormal behavior and uncanny awareness of the world around her.

As she crouches in the muddy trench, the wind and rain doing their best to bat her down (or perhaps give her pneumonia, given how soaked she is), one hand staunching a cut on her shoulder (praying in the back of her mind that it doesn't get infected) and another clutching a kunai, she wants to kill whoever decided to label her as such. Wet, muddy, tired, cramped, hurt, one leg caked in two-day-old blood that wasn't hers (something that would have grossed her out more before but it's happened so many times she's stopped caring) and at least two dozen mosquito bites littering her formerly bare arms (she corrected that after the first three nights, regardless of the heat), she doesn't feel like a prodigy. She feels like a piece of shit, mentally and physically.

Physically because, well, it should be obvious for the reasons stated above.

Mentally, because she is all of ten years old (or at least her body is) and in the last two weeks she's directly killed more people than the number of years she's been alive. Because she misses her bed and her two dogs and warmth and cleanness (Her parents have been dead for eight years now, killed in the last few battles of the second ninja war, and she misses them but not right now, right now surviving is more important).

Because she can remember another world, another life, a time when she lived in (comparative to this world) luxury and had never taken a single life in all the years she'd been alive (only she can't remember her name from back then nor how she got here did she die what happened who is she). Because in that world, _this_ world had been nothing but a story, a work of fiction. But here, this war-torn battlefield is cold, hard reality.

Because it took all of two hours in the woods to figure out that she is a coward, and all of two days on the battlefield to figure out that she is willing to do anything to survive.

She's unsure if she feels scared or sorry for the things she's done. Nowadays, those two often come one after the other.

A shouted warning interrupts her thoughts as a volley of kunai passes overhead. She breathes a sigh of relief even as she hears bodies falling behind her. Her eyes sharpen on one last kunai, lagging behind the rest, aimed lower. They lock on the handle and widen and suddenly she is moving away, not caring that she's giving away their position. She just barely remembers to shout a warning – "Exploding tag!" – as she moves. Her warning comes too late for most of the other ninja in her trench and the exploding tag goes off at point-blank range, the explosion made worse by the confined space of the trench.

She feels the heat of the explosion, singing her back slightly, as she leaps clear out of the trench and runs for the cover of the boulders behind them. A severed hand lands to her left. A kunai barely misses her ear. She doesn't look. Her black hair, just barely long enough to be annoying, billows into her face – dammit, where is her hair tie? She makes it to the boulders, along with a dozen or so ninja, some sporting a few kunai in their bodies. There had been at least three-dozen ninja in that trench.

One of them pats her head with a bloody hand (something deep inside of her protests and wants to bat the hand away but she pushes it down) and smiles.

"Good job spotting that kunai," he says. "Less of us would have made it out otherwise." She doesn't say anything, simply nods. She knows if she had warned first and then run, more would have made it out.

She knows it's horrible, this sense of self-preservation within her that screams _me first, everyone else last_. She's stopped trying to justify it a long time ago.

The man turns away to confer with his superior on what action to take next, and misses the small paper-like ball covered in black inky characters that rolls to their feet. Hibari's reaction is instant – she leaps backwards into the air, gets a kunai to her thigh and her shoulder (dammit, _again_), and just barely manages to avoid another point-blank explosion. This one is larger and the resulting shockwave knocks her several meters backwards. Her shoulder twinges painfully when she lands; the cut on her thigh is superficial. She pulls the kunai out of her shoulder and makes a patchwork bandage out of her shredded sleeve. Out of the rest of the ninja that were standing behind the boulders, only three make it out alive, one sporting raw burn marks all over his right side. They will probably scar, if they don't get infected and kill him first.

There's maybe fifty enemy ninja on the other side. Comparatively, the four of them standing there in the open are all that's left. Hibari glances at the high cliff wall that's on one side and the forest on the other. The cliff is too exposed; they'll be sniped down before they make it a third of the way up. The forest is too far away; there's no guarantee they can outrun all of the enemy ninja.

Hibari takes a good look at the other three ninja. The one with the burns probably won't make it out alive. It seems that he knows this as well. There's a dark look in his eyes as he surveys the battlefield, his right arm hanging uselessly. One of them, a boy, is only a few years older that her – maybe fifteen. He looks just as lost as she used to feel, before she resigned herself to this hell. He's proven to have good reflexes and decent speed – he's survived up until now. The last one, a blonde woman, has scars on her arms and hands and a weathered look to her. Clearly, she's seen battle. She probably fought in the previous war as well. Other than her fatigue, she seems mostly unharmed.

They have maybe a minute before the enemy launches another attack, one that will probably wipe them out. This isn't a strategically important place and not many ninja were assigned here in the first place. Hibari suspects that the blitz attack on this location is more to trim down Konoha's ninja population rather than an actual fight for territory (it's working).

The woman – her name was Satsuki, if she remembered correctly – begins to speak.

"The enemy will likely use more explosives to finish us off – it's proven successful so far." And it has. Since yesterday, the enemy has sent a steady stream of fiery rain over their heads and it's whittled their numbers down. "How many smoke bombs and explosives are you all carrying?" The response is not very optimistic. "It'll have to do." She outlines the plan she's scrapped together in a few seconds. Once the next barrage of explosives comes flying, they'll counter with their own explosives in the air, along with smoke bombs. The resulting smoke and explosions will hopefully be large and heavy enough to mask their movements as they run towards the forest. There's no more point in defending this place – it's all but lost. The best they can do is retreat to an outpost further in and deliver the news.

There's so many things that could go wrong – too many explosives to counter, a single one getting through, the smoke not being big enough, unexpected enemy movement- but it's the only plan any of they have, so they go ahead with it, rapidly arming their kunai with their remaining exploding tags and smoke bombs.

Whistling pierces the air, the sound of kunai flying across the clearing. Satsuki responds the fastest, whipping her kunai out. Hibari and the boy follow. The burnt man does his best, but his movements are jerky. The boy, in a rare display of courage, grabs some of his kunai and helps him deflect the explosives. Before their kunai even hit the enemies they're moving, not wasting a single moment. Suddenly a kunai pierces the smoke that's begun to billow out from the smoke bombs, an exploding tag wrapped around the hilt. It comes closer and closer, as though in slow motion, and Hibari can see the tag burning away, a millisecond away from going off-

And then the burnt man throws himself over the tag, his body taking the brunt of the explosion that ensues. Satsuki's face twists in anguish and the boy stops to stare, but she grabs him and forces him to keep on running. Hibari knows not to look by now, but the boy doesn't and releases a strangled sob.

Then suddenly (it's always suddenly, there's never any warning) an enemy nin bursts through the smoke behind them (how did they move so fast), followed by another, and another, and another. Satsuki stuffs something in the boy's arms and pushes him towards Hibari. His steps falter but Hibari pushes him and he keeps on moving. She looks back, and the last she ever sees of Satsuki is her blonde ponytail, a kunai in each hand as she fends off the enemy nin sent to pick them off.

They dash into the forest and take to the trees, easily shaking off the single enemy nin that managed to escape Satsuki. All ninja can tree-hop, but only in Konoha is it taught and used like breathing, instinctive and natural. Besides, if there's one thing Hibari can do, it's run like hell (she isn't proud of that).

They don't stop until an hour later, when both are gasping for breath and deep into Fire country territory. There, the boy breaks down, sobbing, clutching Satsuki's ninja pouch. _So that's what she gave him_. He opens it with shaking hands and takes out a small, carefully kept photograph. It's a family photo, with Satsuki and a man that is probably her husband, and a little boy that is probably her son.

"Sh-she asked me t-t-to give the ph-photo back," he sobbed, "a-and to tell them that she was s-sorry." Hibari doesn't say anything. "A-and she told me to k-k-keep whatever else was in th-the pouch, b-because she wouldn't be n-needing it anymore, but I would-" He breaks off with a small wail. Hibari finally speaks.

"Be quiet. You'll give our position away, if the enemy's still chasing us." (Doubtful. Hibari just doesn't want to listen to him anymore. His words are undermining her conviction, stirring up thoughts she'd suppressed a long time ago in order to survive.)

The boy, predictably, gets even more upset (but at least he's not crying anymore).

"Don't you c-care the least b-bit?! She d-d-" – He takes a moment to get his nerve and breath back – "_died_ for us, and you're acting like you d-don't c-care at all!" Hibari lifts her dull eyes to stare at him and he flinches.

"So did the other man. And every other person in that trench." The boy flinches again, as though she's going to slap him. He looks like he's going to cry again. She curses mentally and turns away. "It's war. People die." She gets ready to move again.

"How..." The boy's speaking again and now Hibari really wishes he would just shut up. "H-how can you j-just... Not care?"

The question makes her pause. She seriously thinks about it, but really, there's no better answer.

"You get used to it." She wonders if she's referring to the people dying or the not caring part. "Let's go." She tries to ignore the boy's stares on the way back with partial success.

* * *

Later, when she has time to think about what happens, Hibari notes that the battle hadn't been too bad. She hadn't sustained any serious injuries. Sure, explosions were ugly to witness when people got caught in them, but there were uglier ways to die. Namely through elemental ninjutsu. An Aburame's bugs at work or an Inuzuka's Gatsuga tearing the opponent apart didn't look nearly as pleasant as it did in the anime in her previous world.

She and the boy make it to an outpost in Konoha. They deliver a report of what had happened. She learns that Satsuki's name was actually Setsuna and the boy's name is Itou. A messenger pigeon is sent, and they're given a few days to rest before new orders arrive for them. She disinfects and patches up her wounds. She finally gets a shower (thank _kami_) and doesn't care one bit that the water is freezing cold. The boy avoids her as much as possible. She doesn't care.

When she's alone, she takes a clean kunai and makes a clean cut on the inside of her left arm. She imagines the blood releasing all of her emotions that she's been holding back – the never ending terror, the guilt, the grief, the shame, the relief, the hate – and then after a minute, patches up the cut with a simple medical ninjutsu that her teammate taught her before he'd died. It's not a healthy habit, but it's the only fast one she's found that works, that keeps her just sane enough to keep functioning properly on the battlefield. Granted, in her previous life she would never have dreamed of doing something like this – she'd been too scared of pain (that had been quickly fixed in this world). She knows that she hasn't really let out the emotions, just created a mental block to keep them at bay. She's probably overdue for a mental breakdown, and her mind is probably a complete mess with what she's done to it – suppressing memories, creating mental blocks (it was amazing what one could do with yin chakra).

She takes the two days they're given to relax and not do anything apart from catch up on sleep and properly wash her clothes. And ask one of the amused chuunin sentries for a hair tie. She reflects on her life as a ninja so far – it's been crappy. She never thought she'd specialize in taijutsu, being more of a couch potato in her last life, but then again, it's not a choice but a necessity for survival. Ninjutsu requires a teacher if you don't want to die from chakra exhaustion from the first day, and a lot of time to master. Genjutsu requires imagination and an eye for detail, and a lot of time to master. Time she hasn't gotten yet. She wonders morbidly how well she'd do if she tries it out after the war – she'll have plenty of inspiration to draw from. Taijutsu had been the only the thing that might not kill her even if she hadn't mastered it yet at the time she was thrown into the war. She's sure her form is complete crap and there must be a dozen holes in her guards but it's kept her alive so far, and she improves it each time she fights. Wryly, she realizes she hasn't had an actual spar or training session since the war began, not even a jog in the morning. Everything she's learned, every bit she's improved, she's done it on the fly.

New missives arrive. She and the boy are sent to different battlefields. She ignores the looks of pity the outpost chuunin give them as she bows, thanks them for the medical supplies, and leaves.

* * *

She arrives at the new location and surveys the relatively scorch-free land. There's plenty of dirt and open land, but the trees are close enough to use for cover and there aren't any trenches. She feels an optimistic thought bubbling up and stomped down firmly on it, crushing it underneath her heel. Battlefield conditions can change any minute, especially when ninjutsu users are on the field. Still, as battlefields go, this one doesn't seem too bad. It's on the front lines, like every other battlefield she's been on, but the trees make her feel much better. It's frightening for her, a Konoha nin raised in the forests, to fight on barren, empty land.

Then she sees who is commanding and all thoughts go to hell.

The Ino-Shika-Cho trio. If this location is important enough to send those three, who are much too important to keep in reserve or as backup, then this place will see action. She blows out of her mouth quietly. According to her official file, she's still a genin, but she's not in the genin corps, and her team is all dead, and chuunin and jounin ranks are being squeezed thin trying to defend everywhere, and she's apparently somehow due for a field promotion already, and she's already been in this war for several months and survived, so the Hokage is willing to let her deployment slip under the table (She really, really hates him for that, even if she understands his reasoning).

She reports to the official field commander (everyone knows he paws off a third of his responsibilities onto his teammates each), Nara Shikaku. He's sitting with his two teammates and they all look fairly stunned at the appearance of a child. She's to stay here for the next month – after that, she's to return to Konoha for her break and promotion and won't be called back to the battlefield for at least four months unless an emergency happens. Yamanaka Inoichi looks like he's about to argue, but Shikaku shakes his head and Akimichi Chouza places a meaty paw on his shoulder. They dismiss her and she leaves to find her assigned tent, but she doesn't miss the stares they give her as she walks away.

* * *

The next month is as horrible as she expects it to be. Because of her taijutsu specialization, she's rarely held in reserve. While she can tell Shikaku tries to keep her out of the very front lines as much as possible, she still sees action more times than she would like (which would be zero times) and more than once nearly loses her life (nearly).

She's equal parts relieved and annoyed that initially, every time she's sent onto the battlefield, the Ino-Shika-Cho are usually nearby, and everywhere she goes outside of the battlefield, one of them is usually coincidentally there, offering help or company or a smile or whatnot (She suspects they feel guilty about letting a child fight, Hokage's orders or not). Relieved, because this increases her chances of survival. They're trying to protect her, the youngest one, just a baby in their eyes. Her age is both a cursing and a blessing.

At the same time, she dearly wishes they would _stay the hell away_ because she does not want to get tangled up with any of the 'canon' characters of the previously only fictional series called _Naruto_. They go through the worst shit ever, and she does not want any part of that. She just wants to _survive_, damn it. Preferably to thirty.

(She feels just as complicated when they stop after a week, the fighting having grown too frequent for the three strongest ninja there to waste time shadowing a ten-year-old orphan. They still frequently check up on her, and it's hard not to appreciate that kind of support. Even the other ninja are gentler with her, not as boisterous when talking to her, her tent-mates are careful not to wake her up if she's sleeping.)

It's rather ironic how she ended up in her current situation. She's been labeled as a genius from birth because she could only hide so much of the effects of having a mental and physical age disparity of at least twenty years. Forced into the ninja academy by some obscure tradition/rule/excuse for orphans, she went through the academy keeping her head down and her scores average, but when her entire team dying coincided with a shortage of ninja on the battlefield, she and the other orphan genin had drawn the short end of the stick. Now, three months later, she's the only one still alive, unless the boy from the previous battlefield - Itou - has managed to survive.

* * *

It's been two week since she's arrived at her current location. She's lost count of how many times she's fought – battles have been raging at least daily, if not twice a day. She ducks under the enemy nin's kunai, briefly thanking her short stature, and parries a stab attempt at her neck. The enemy kunoichi lashes out with a foot that she barely manages to block – being halfway decent with taijutsu didn't mean shit when your opponent was almost twice as tall as you and probably double your weight (she's been neglecting her food consumption recently, something else that would never have happened in her previous life, but here survival is decidedly more important than food).

The advantage of being small, though, is in the unpredictable chaos she can cause underfoot. She displays this now, as she grabs an ankle and lets all of her weight drop, pulling the talker kunoichi forwards with surprising strength and catching her off guard. She's still holding onto the woman's ankle as she falls, and throws a shuriken at the kunoichi's other foot. It sinks deep into the ankle where Hibari knows holds delicate tendons and the kunoichi gasps and trips, falling forwards, aided with a sharp tug on the ankle that she's still holding onto. Before she even hits the ground, Hibari is already by her head, kunai ready, and drives it deep into her neck before she can recover. Red splatters all over her face. The kunoichi twitches once and is still. Hibari gets up, wiping the blood away from her eyes as she moves on. A Douton jutsu erupts from the ground a few hundred meters away and she veers sharply in the opposite direction – she's learned early on to stay the hell away from ninjutsu users. She usually hangs out at the egde of the battlefield – less likely to get attacked from behind that way.

A kunai sinks into her thigh from behind (screw that previous though) and she screams (still not used to being hurt never used to being hurt) and falls forward. She glances backwards to see the enemy nin looming over her and kicks out sharply with the leg that isn't hurt. He moves his head and the kick misses. He grabs her ankle and pulls her up until she's no longer in contact with the ground.

Hibari has never been in this situation before and she is completely and utterly terrified. She lets out a chocked scream and flails, her wounded leg hitting his shoulder ineffectively. Perhaps he hasn't seen the kunai she's holding, because she doesn't think he would have lifted her like this otherwise. She remembers the kunai in her hand and brings it around, trying to drive it into his chest, but it clangs uselessly against sturdy armor. His other hand comes up and grabs the kunai right out of her hands. He drives it into her uninjured thigh _hard_ and she _screams_ because this is the worst wound she's gotten so far and it _burns_ and she's even crying now even though the last time she cried was after her first real battle in the war-

And then the man drops the kunai and lifts her up bridal style and runs away from the battlefield and then she's terrified that she's going to be kidnapped or taken away to be tortured and she's contemplating really contemplating the chances of driving a kunai through his neck right now or even through her own neck-

But he stops after several dizzying seconds of running on the ground (of course, Kumo nin, few trees over there) and sets her down, kneeling on one knee in front of her. She collapses immediately, neither of her injured legs able to support her weight. She stares up with tearful eyes at the man, a rugged, scarred soldier who's also staring back at her.

She takes a moment to get a good look at him while he's silent. He's tall – at least six feet, and muscular, built like a bull. His thick necks spreads into wide, heavy set shoulders. He has a scar running across his face and multiple scars across his arms. His gloves have metal plating, as does his vest – he's a close-range, physical fighter. So is Hibari, but the disparity in power is so obvious it's not even funny. There's also a katana on his back, but he doesn't look like the type of fighter to use a katana. A memento of some sort, perhaps? He has short, cropped black hair and a goatee. His eyes are small but sharp, reminding her of a hawk's. His nose is crooked, signs of a bad break that didn't heal right. All in all, he screams soldier.

"Children shouldn't be fighting," he finally rumbles, and he almost sounds sad.

"Bwuh?" It's not the most intelligent thing that's come out of her mouth but given the state she's in, it's excusable. The burly man smiles and pats her head and she's too stunned to even flinch away. He takes out a piece of cloth and wipes away some of the blood on her face.

"You remind me of my daughter," he says softly in that deep rumble that is strangely soothing (somewhere in the back of her mind Hibari is jealous of this man's daughter, who probably got to hear silly bedtime tales and children's songs in the same deep voice). "You won't be able to fight with those legs for a while. I'm sorry. If your commander has any brains, he'll send you back." She wonders if he's forgotten that Konoha is famous for producing quality medical ninja, even if the standard has gone down after Tsunade's departure. A flesh wound, no matter how deep, won't keep her off the field for more than a week. Even so, she's deeply shocked and grateful for this gesture. She knows he could have easily ended her life instead (she wonders if he would have, were she just a bit older).

He vanishes, and the next moment she feels something hit the back of her neck and her world goes dark.

* * *

Yamanaka Inoichi finds her probably about an hour later, once the fighting stops and they notice that their resident midget is gone. She's awake by then, and had begun crawling her way back to the battlefield. His face takes on a particularly anguished look for a few moments when he sees her legs before he school them back into a more controlled expression. He picks her up and carries her back, going around the battlefield. She tries not to cry out every time he jostles her legs by accident. She manages to catch sight of the body of the man who spared her, throat mangled by a kunai, eyes and mouth still open in a stunned expression. Her throat closes, but she opens her mouth.

"Stop, please." The words are almost physically painful to force out. She rarely speaks more than she absolutely has to, scared that if she talks too much she'll start babbling things she'd rather went unsaid. She's scared all of her carefully locked up emotions will come tumbling out. Inoichi dutifully stops. She motions to be let down beside the man's body and his eyebrows crease in worry, but she insists and he complies. She tries to ignore the other bodies and the stench of blood and steel and death around her. Slowly, with trembling fingers, she unties the katana from his back and straps it around her own body. She reaches out and closes his eyes with a hand, then sits back up and nods to Inoichi, who picks her up again. He makes no comment on her actions and carries her back to the camp.

Shikaku and Chouza look extremely relieved when Inoichi returns, although their faces crease with worry when he sets her down in their tent and they catch sight of her legs. A medic – one of the poor five overworked medics at the location – is called and the wound is mostly healed. The flesh is still tender and she'll have to rest them for a few days, but she'll be battle ready within a week. She's told that it will scar, but that's fine. She doesn't ever want to forget about the man who saved her (something that's constant from her previous life; she's always been horrible at letting things go).

She didn't even know his name.

* * *

They find out about her bad habit of cutting.

She isn't as stone cold as she appears. She's always been stubborn, even if in her previous life she had little self-control. She holds her emotions at bay, never letting them slide through for more than a moment. It feels like she's trying to hold a tsunami at bay with a surfboard sometimes. And when it becomes too much, she'll try to relieve some of it this way.

Her legs are almost healed and as she takes off her bandages and sees the scars, she's reminded of the large, burly, gentle man that stabbed her legs in an attempt to save her from a future like his, who died not an hour later, who had a daughter like her, whose sword she now holds. Her thoughts swirl around until she's thinking about the war, about her life here, about how many lives she taken and how many more she's sacrificed in order to live, about her own parents here that she barely knew before they died in the second ninja war, about her previous live and family and friends and everything that she's lost, about Satsuki-Setsuna that gave up her life for them, about Itou who's probably dead-

Before she realizes what she's doing she's up with a kunai in her hand and headed towards the river close by, away from enemy territory. It's not safe but she's not going to do this in the tent with three other ninja there.

Later, she realizes that her abrupt departure with a kunai in hand worried her tent-mates, who went to Shikaku, who told Inoichi. Of course it's the shrink who finds her, standing by the river, letting her blood flow from a deeper than usual cut on her arm into the grass. At least the cut was high enough on the arm that it was obvious she wasn't trying to take her life. It doesn't stop him from crashing through the trees with a thunderous expression, nearly giving her a heart attack, and knocking the loosely clenched kunai out of her hand. He grabs her arm, staunching the wound.

He looks very close to exploding. In fact, he might have, if he hadn't caught sight of her terrified expression. He sighs, loosening but not relinquishing his grip on her arms. Not saying a word, he drags her back to the tent that he, Shikaku and Chouza share. They're both in the tent when he arrives with her in tow. She's unsure if she's more glad (no need to explain things twice) or mortified (twice the witnesses). All three of them exchange an entire conversation's worth of information through a few glances and gestures. Inoichi sits her down and Chouza passes him a roll of bandages. He silently wraps her cut up and finally lets go of her arm. She immediately pulls her arm towards her chest and unconsciously hunches her shoulders, pulling her body closer together in a mentally defensive position.

Inoichi sighs again and rubs his forehead with his thumbs. Finally, he makes a gesture and Shikaku and Chouza stand up and leave the tent. He wouldn't do this for another ninja, he knows, there's just no time in the middle of a war, but a child is different. A child that, even by ninja standards, shouldn't be here fighting and killing. He wonders what the hell the Hokage was thinking, sending a genin into a war. He's sitting beside her, a less confrontational position than sitting in front of her. She glances at her, still in her hunched-up and defensive position.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks gently. Predictably, she shakes her head. He wants to leave it alone, knows that initially he'll be doing her no favours taking her mind apart (because to fix something as broken as her mind you have to break it apart completely first) but he's knows she'll only get worse. It's why he asked Shikaku and Chouza to leave – even though they would never tell anyone, he knows she wouldn't want more people to witness her inevitable breakdown. Already she's displaying all the usual symptoms for dissociation with reality and destructive behaviour. He'll bet she hasn't even noticed that she's always absently double-checking checking that her pouch is shut properly and that she has a habit of obsessively scrubbing her hands (probably of imaginary blood that will never come off).

"Is it about that man?" The one whose katana she'd taken, the enemy nin whose eyes she'd gently closed. There's more to this particular story, and it'll function as a gateway to the rest of her mind. There's no response from her. He turns to face her and, respectfully, she lifts her head enough so that her eyes can hover at a point about his nose. "Do you trust me?" Most ninja would say yes, if not right away. Inoichi and his friends have always been popular, a reliable, stable trio whom you could always go to for any problems. But Hibari lifts her gaze to finally meet his eyes and doesn't answer – a yes would be a lie but a no is almost treasonous. It says something, that this child doesn't trust her commanding officer. He sighs again but doesn't break eye contact.

"I'd like to enter your mind – my clan, the Yamanaka clan, has technique that enable us to do so." This finally gets a reaction out of her – an almost comical widening of her eyes, followed by not-so-comical terror. He wonders what could have put such fear in her eyes. Surely she know that however many people she's killed, however dirty she feels she is, he is at least ten times worse. Unless there's something worse hidden in her mind, something worse than killing and war and he really doesn't want to think about it. "I can help somewhat – ease up nightmares, make some things easier to forget" – just an excuse to see her memories – "although you won't really forget them, they'll just slip into the back of your mind. I won't actually see your memories – you'll point out things you want me to change." Lie. "We don't even have to do anything about your memories. We can just talk in your mind. Many ninja say it's easier for them because there's no chance of someone overhearing what's said, and they can show memories of something they don't understand, and there are less distractions."

He knows he hasn't mentioned an alternative. It might have sounded like a request but it was more or less "I'm going to enter your mind in the next ten minutes for your own good, and I'd really rather do it with your permission." Normally he'd balk at doing this to a child, but she still has two weeks out here and she's not going to survive if her mind gives out now. She'll be low priority and won't be able to get an appointment with someone else in his clan, even if she was willing, and he'll still be on the frontlines for who knows how long – it could be anywhere from months to years before they get another chance.

Meanwhile, Hibari's mind is racing. This is why she'd wanted to avoid the Yamanaka clan especially. She had no idea exactly how their mind techniques worked. If she could direct what he saw and hide whatever she didn't want him to see, that was fine. But if it really reflected her mind, than simply thinking about something she shouldn't be – such as knowledge of the future – would immediately expose her. At best, they'll discover the whole rebirth mess and assume she's crazy until she somehow proves that she isn't (she really hopes she isn't crazy). At worst, they'd assume she's a spy from the information she isn't supposed to know and hand her over to T&I, where they won't be nearly as gentle as Inoichi is being right now. It can't be helped. She doesn't want to show him memories of Satsuki-Setsuna and Itou and the Kumo nin with the katana but with any luck he'll assume that's what's been bothering her recently (and it is) and not dig any deeper. She forces herself to nod, lowering her eyes. He smiles gratefully and places a large hand on her forehead. She flinches slightly, then stills. And without any warning or fanfare, they are in her mind.

* * *

Her mind is a fucking house of horrors and they both realize this right away. They're standing in what appears to be a room with a glass floor. Underneath, various murky shapes are twisting and howling and slamming at the glass, trying to get through. One hits the glass right under her feet and she yelps, practically jumping right into Inoichi's arms. He doesn't say anything, just holds her, gently but firmly, and looks around the room, probably cataloguing everything and coming to the conclusion that her mind is an utter mess. Around them, on the walls, images of the war – battlefields, bodies, blood – flash back and forth. She looks away, curling into his chest. Gently, he pushes her down into a sitting position in with him. She protests at first, wanting to get away from the dark shapes underneath, but he's persistent.

"Calm down and imagine a pale blue colour. Imagine it everywhere. Nothing but blue," he says gently, placing a hand over her eyes. It doesn't do anything because this is in her mind and she can still see everything, but it works as a focus point. She imagines a soft periwinkle blue, the colour of her old room in her old life-

Bad direction, bad direction. She switches to the yellow colour of daisies and the Yondaime Hokage's hair-

Dammit. A light orange-

No. Nor pink. Green, the colour of grass, but lighter. When she 'opens' her eyes, the room is gone, surrounded by the green shade she envisioned. Inoichi has an amused look on his face.

"Going through the rainbow?" She flushes and he laughs gently, patting her head. "Thank you for letting me in. Feel free to think whatever you want – we're not quite in your mind that whatever you think gets projected. I've created a separate space – think of this like a separate memory in your mind that we're writing out right now. Whatever shows up is what you want to show me." Or what he can forcefully drag out, but he won't do that. She ponders that thought quietly. She thinks of how kind he and Shikaku and Chouza been to her, even if only out of the guilt of having to send a child into battle. She knows they're trustworthy and won't gossip. She also knows that anything she tells them runs the risk of being relayed to the Hokage. After all, Inoichi promised his help and his support but not any patient confidentiality. When you sign on to become a ninja, you hand over your rights to the Hokage. But still. She can tell this war is fraying at her mind. Usually she can last a month before cutting. But Inoichi is talking again.

"It seems you've been trying to block things out," he says. "Those dark shapes earlier aren't that uncommon in minds like ours. Thinks we don't want to think about, all piled together somewhere in our minds. Usually ninja can stuff them somewhere and lock them up to deal with later, but you... You've been trying to do that, but it hasn't been working." Hibari stills. Hasn't been working? Her confusion must show on her face. "Rather than keeping them away, you've shut yourself away instead, letting them run around in your mind but doing your best to ignore them," he explains. His eyes soften. "I'm sorry. You should never have been put in this war." She shrugs, but it's a jerky action. Her hand is trembling now. He notices and gently grasps her hand, holding it in his larger palm. "A child shouldn't have to try to shut away this much just to able to function – or have to rely on self-harm to try and get it out without breaking down." And he's already cut to the heart of the matter with the little bit she's given him. Truly the embodiment of give an inch, take a mile. His eyes are still gentle, always gentle as he continues. "Can you show me what happened with that man?"

She knows whom he's talking about. She closes her eyes and envisions a white wall beside them. On the wall, she projects the beginning of that memory – her being stabbed from behind. It's kind of blurry and there are holes everywhere – black parts, fuzzy edges, skips in the 'film' – since memories are hard to retain perfectly if one doesn't have photographic memory. Inoichi gets the general idea anyways.

It's like a dam has sprung a hole and now she can't help but think of everything else that's happened in this war. Her mind backtracks to Satsuki-Setsuna, whose face shows up on the screen with Itou's and the burnt man's. Their last moments play out. Then she shows her first battle, her first kill, the vomiting and tears that had occurred afterwards and the complete lack of sympathy from the Hyuuga commander. A teenage girl, screaming, as the medics around her try to save what is left of the mangled stump that used to be her right arm. Being stabbed by a stray kunai. An explosion of blood and flesh and dirt from a Katon jutsu. The exploding tag the severed hand the noise the blood theKumoninliveliveliveIwanttoliveIWANTTOLIVE-

And suddenly they are out of her mind, back in Inoichi's tent and she's gasping and crying and he's pulled her onto his lap and hugging her tightly and Shikaku and Chouza have come back and she burrows deeper into Inoichi's chest, because she doesn't want them to see and she's always hated crying in public.

Chouza's hand comes to rest gently on her back and Inoichi hands her over to the larger man. At this point Hibari no longer cares and curls up into Chouza's chest, still crying quietly and trembling. Inoichi has a hand over his own eyes, as though he's holding back tears, and Shikaku has him in a one-arm embrace. The four of them stay like that until Hibari's tears have mostly subsided into small hiccups and sniffles. She's gotten Inoichi and Chouza's shirts wet but they don't seem to care or even notice.

There's an awkward silence in the tent, broken by her sniffles. Suddenly, Hibari sneezes, loudly enough to make Inoichi and Shikaku jump. Chouza, who saw her sneeze coming, chuckles. Inoichi and Shikaku laugh quietly too. They share a conversation via a few glances and tilts of the head, then Shikaku stands up, contorting awkwardly in the small tent, and offers a hand to Hibari. She crawls off Chouza's lap, suddenly feeling incredibly awkward, and takes his hand. He walks her back to her tent, not letting go of her hand. It makes her feel like a toddler and she tries to hide her embarrassment (the human contact is comforting). He waves goodbye once they reach her tent.

"Inoichi will find you tomorrow," he says, and she stills, realizing the significance of what has just happened. There's no way those three will leave her alone now.

_Damn it_.

* * *

She has a hard time falling asleep that night. She keeps replaying what happened that day. If she's to be perfectly honest, this was what she wanted. An excuse to be emotional. An exit. An outlet. It's been so _long_...

But she can't let them get any closer. It's too risky, especially with a Yamanaka and a Nara; a single slip up and they'll have all her secrets by the end of the day. The only thing going for her is that they won't be looking for hidden knowledge of the future (and the past, technically). They'll be looking for trauma caused by the war, and there's plenty of that to keep them busy, even if she'd rather they didn't touch that corner of her mind either.

She hasn't always tried to suppress her emotions as much. As a child (she forgets she still technically is one), she only had to keep up a mask of indifference for the seven hours of the academy. She hasn't ever been very social – that much hasn't changed with rebirth. But the moment she was thrown into the war, her emotions have been on constant lockdown, lest she have a breakdown every two days. She was barely able to stop crying back then, sheer willpower and the fact that there was witnesses reigning back the tears.

She feels better and worse at the same time. Better, because she's let go of some of the burdens, and because someone else understands and is willing to help her. Worse, because now she can feel the formerly suppressed guilt and anxiety and fear rearing its ugly head, waiting for a chance to swallow her. And embarrassment. Oh, the embarrassment. The camp is filled with ninja, all at least Chuunin. There's no was they didn't hear her breakdown earlier. Her tent mates were all suspiciously already asleep when she returned. Oh Kami, tomorrow is going to be awkward.

At least she doesn't have to worry about nightmares. Just like in her previous life, when she's physically exhausted (like she's been every single day since being tossed into the war), she doesn't even have dreams (or at least any dreams that she can remember).

No, it'll be after the war that she'll have to worry about them.

* * *

Inoichi doesn't get much sleep that night either. Shikaku and Chouza, the good friends (best friends) that they are, stay up with him. Shikaku is actually sitting up straight and Chouza isn't munching on anything. They know it makes him feel better when he can talk his frustrations out to someone, because due to the nature of his work off the battlefield he rarely can.

"It's bad, but not as bad as it could be." He's describing what he saw in Hibari's mind. "The usual things you'd see in war, no more, no less. But she's just a little girl." He wrings his hands, an old bad habit. Chouza puts his own hand on them, but Inoichi pulls them away to run his hands through his hair. It's let down at the moment, hanging near the bottom of his chest. "What the hell was the Hokage thinking?" Then he signs, because that question is redundant. It's not their job to question the Hokage. Shikaku shifts slightly. He's to be appointed official clan head when the war ends, and his uncle, the previous head, has been including him on council matters more and more, since he'll be attending the meetings in his place after the war.

"I heard it was Danzo's suggestion, to use the graduating orphans from the academy in the war." Inoichi scowls sharply. Chouza's frown isn't as deep but on the inside they all feel the same sharp burn of anger – and guilt. They know it isn't their fault she's on the field, but they can't help but feel guilty each time she has to go out and fight. "He was shot down by Sandaime-sama though, he didn't think we were that pressed for ninja just yet." While child soldiers aren't unheard of (and in this world child simply referring to anyone with under a year of ninja experience under their hitai-ate), their usage is frowned upon for many reasons; a waste of potential, inefficiency, loss of faith from the civilian side (which was why usually only orphans were sent; orphans just like Hibari).

"What made him change his mind?" It's Chouza who asks this time, knowing that Shikaku had already gotten his hands on all information available about Hibari the moment they'd realized a ten year old would be joining them on the front lines. Shikaku grimaces.

"From what I heard, her team's all dead except for her. According to the official report, about three weeks after they graduated, they were sent to run a courier mission to the outposts. They got ambushed by an Iwa infiltration squad." Inoichi and Chouza wince. "The Jounin-sensei stayed behind to draw their attention away and give the kids time to run away and alert the closest outpost. Two of the kids were found dead near the Jounin-sensei's body, so they think they must have went back to try and help. The girl was the only one who made it." The unspoken _she didn't turn back to help her team_ hangs in the air.

This brings up an issue that the three of them noticed early on. It's not exactly traitorous behaviour, but Hibari always stays near the edge of the battles, where there's less action and enemies. She won't go out of her way to help a comrade that's struggling if it's too risky for her. She fights underhanded and dirty in a way that's not normal for a ten year old child, as though she's aware of what being younger means, and all the advantages and disadvantages it brings. Even Hatake Kakashi took a while to realize (or perhaps accept) that a child crying out a pain will occasionally make the enemy pause and give him a chance to slip away or slide a kunai into their neck – at that was only after he'd been abandoned in a battle and forced to survive by himself. As far as they know, Hibari's always been with a group, and has never been abandoned – and yet she fights as though she's the only one out there, as though her allies aren't people she can depend on, just not potential enemies. It reveals a mind much sharper than they originally thought. It also indicates an extremely strong desire to survive at all costs. Perhaps she isn't so jaded yet as to use her allies as shields, but she's already shown that given the option, she might just abandon ship.

They wonder if she's always been like this, or if the war brought this side out.

She somehow manages to avoid them the next day, and the day after that. They suspect she's asked her tent-mates to cover for her. Shikaku manages to convince Inoichi to leave her. She only has another two weeks here, one of which will be spent recuperating. It's a sad, harsh, truth, but they have bigger concerns that an orphan whose mind might be permanently scarred. After all, it's war.

* * *

The second last day before she's due to be relieved and return to Konoha, Hibari almost loses an ear and a leg. The fighting has become more frequent and more intense. Hibari blames lack of sleep and proper nutrition for the reason why an enemy nin is able to sneak up her. The enemy nin is an adept manipulator of ninja wire and tries to lop her head off from behind. Thankfully, she's pretty flexible, and folds herself backwards into a bridge. The wire catches slightly on her hair (it's getting long again, she's cutting it the moment she gets out of this battle) and cuts the bottom of her ear, and for a terrifying second as she desperately throws her head to the other side she thinks she's going to loss an ear – but then the wire passes by safely, leaving her ear intact and still connected to the side of her head. She wastes no time flipping towards the ninja, startling him with her speed, and feels both feet connect solidly with his chest.

Her victory is short-lived when he barely budges, grabs her leg, _twists_ painfully, and slams her to the ground, jarring her shoulder painfully. She barely manages to roll out of the way of a kunai aimed for her head. Her movement is limited; he's still holing onto an ankle, and he begins to lift her up.

Only this man isn't wearing armor on his perfectly exposed (from her position) chest (or anywhere else in her reach actually; damn, this man is arrogant), and she snatches up the kunai he'd thrown and slams it into his ribs. It's not serious, but it's surprising enough that he lets go of her with a yell. She lands on her hands and kicks back, not managing to unbalance him but using him as a vertical springboard to create some more distance between them and get upright at the same time. Her ankle is quite sore but can still bear her weight, if just barely. She hears one of her tent-mates yell a warning and drops to the ground immediately. The enemy nin isn't fast enough, and takes the full brunt of a medium-sized Katon: Gokakyuu no jutsu to the face (it isn't pretty). She nods her thanks to the tent-mate and moves on.

Suddenly the ground around her shifts, and then the earth _opens up_ right in front of her as if to swallow her whole. She has just enough warning to jump up, up, up, praying to the heavens to not get sniped right now. The ninja in front of her isn't as lucky and disappears into the ground with a scream. She lands on her sore ankle and it gives away with a _crack_. She falls to the ground with a wail. The Douton user must still have been nearby, because the earth starts shifting around her again. She forces herself up onto her one good leg and jumps as high as she can. It isn't high enough, and the douton jutsu's earth manages to catch around her injured leg.

It closes and _squeezes_.

Stars burst under her eyes.

She screams once, and then the world fades away blissfully.

* * *

She wakes up to a white ceiling. She's lying in a bed with white sheets. The walls of the room are also white. She drowsily wonders if she's dead. There's a chuckle to her left.

"Not quite." She turns her head slowly and makes out an old man in white and red robes with a ridiculous hat. He laughs. "It is a rather ridiculous hat." She realizes that, one, this must be the Hokage, and two, she must be saying her thoughts out loud, and would her mind shut up please. He chuckles again. "How are you feeling, Hibari-chan?" She blinks once. Too familiar for her liking. She really would rather have nothing to do with the Hokage. She sees his face fall slightly and sighs, she's still to drowsy for this shit. She closes her eyes and falls asleep again.

* * *

"You think she's alright?"

"I'm sure she is. It was just her leg that was hurt."

"Her career as a ninja might be over, though."

"Yeah? That might be a good thing."

"Inoichi ..."

"She didn't want to be one in the first place, but you know the policy with orphans."

"..."

"Well, either way, we still have another three months to go before we can return."

"Shikaku, you sent my letter right?"

"For the third time; yes, I did. Now let me _sleep_."

* * *

When Hibari wakes up the second time, her head is a lot clearer. She also _hurts_ a lot more. She pauses for a good minute to replay her last few memories and remember where she is. When she does, she's equal parts scared to look at her left leg and mortified at the fact that she'd more or less blown the Hokage off. She sighs and attempts to sit up. There isn't much attached to her, just a heart monitor and an IV drip. Her left leg feels suspiciously pain-free compared to the rest of her sore body. She hesitantly lifts the cover and checks – well, at least her leg is still there bound from the knee down in a hard white cast, and probably in one piece. She can't feel much in it right now. Her heart rate must have changed when she woke up, because a nurse arrives seconds later, beaming when she sees Hibari up and awake.

"How are you feeling, sweetie?" she asks as she briskly gives Hibari a once-over, takes her temperature, checks the IV drip and the data on the heart monitor. Hibari opens her mouth and croaks. The nurse chuckles. "Right, hang on." She leaves and comes back a minute later with a paper cup filled with water. Hibari drinks it gratefully and works her jaw somewhat before trying again.

"A bit sore... But fine." The nurse beams.

"That's good. The soreness is to be expected, you've been asleep for three days – probably form the shock." Her face become soft and concerned as she asks slowly, "Do you remember what happened?" Hibari nods calmly and the nurse straightens slightly, relieved. "Right then – your leg was crushed by a Douton jutsu, but the soil at the location that you were fighting at isn't as firm as most soil, so luckily the damage isn't as bad as it could have been. A medic on site straightened your leg out a bit while you were unconscious, otherwise your leg might have been beyond saving – it took them three days to get you home." Shikaku must have gotten a speedy ninja on site get her to at least an outpost halfway or something, otherwise it would have taken longer. Hibari's surprised and touched that he spared manpower like that.

"It took some serious surgery to save your leg, but with a lot of physiotherapy, it'll be as good as before," she beams. "You also have the advantage of being really young" – her smile falters slightly – "so as long as the bone heals properly, it'll be like nothing ever happened to it." Her smile disappears entirely and she sighs. "To be honest, usually there wouldn't be so many medics working on a single ninja," she says sadly. "The war is getting pretty bad and we're starting to become seriously understaffed. But they saw how young you were, and, well... There've been a lot of rumours, you know. Your official documents say you're only ten." She places a hand on Hibari's shoulder. "I'm sorry. You're only ten, and you've fought in a war. You aren't a prodigy or we would have heard about it. You... Probably weren't meant to survive. That's why five medics worked seven hours non-stop to save your leg. They were determined to not let the war cripple you like that."

And now Hibari wishes the nurse would stop talking, because now it's the second time that someone's helped her, when for the first three months she really expected to die out there, and now she's finally _home_ and she'll be okay (she isn't just yet) and she's _alive_. She does her best to keep the sniffles back as the nurse leaves, but if she doesn't succeed the nurse doesn't comment.

* * *

She's given a crutch and released two days later because apart from her leg and a case of malnutrition (that got the same sweet nurse to curse at the general unfairness of a child in the war again) she's fine, and there are ninja with much worse wounds pouring in by the dozen and they can't spare a bed for her. She hobbles slowly, not used to using a crutch (she'd never broken a leg in her previous life). The speed is excruciatingly slow after four months of fucking-run-faster-or-you-die, but at the same time it's a nice change. She doesn't have to run from kunai or exploding paper tags or enemy nin. At least for now, she's safe.

Strapped onto her back is the katana she took from the kumo nin not two weeks ago. She was pleasantly surprised at seeing it in the room and didn't bother to ask how it got there. As she hobbles down the street, trying to ignore everyone's stares, she wonders if the orphanage still remembers her. Despite becoming a ninja, she'd stayed with the orphanage in return for helping with babysitting and doing chores and paying a small rent that would go to the groceries in the end, so she really doesn't mind. It's been four months and she'd left rather abruptly with barely a goodbye, the summons had been so sudden.

Her fears are vanquished when she approaches the orphanage and spots the matron sitting outside, watching the children playing on the road. The matron catches sight of her and gasps, clutching at her chest. Hibari smiles weakly and waves, and almost falls over when the matron runs up to her and hugs her tightly, sobbing and whispering her name over and over again (she has to ignore the instinct to grab a kunai and stab the person offending her personal space – it's a good thing she isn't carrying any kunai in arm's reach at the moment). She leans into the matron's embrace, the woman who treats all of the orphans like her own children, who's the closest thing Hibari had to a mother in this world. There's been a big increase in the number of orphans due to the war, but there are still some children that remember their "big sister" and join in the big hug, some laughing, some crying.

That night, all of the children clamor to sign her cast, and it's completely filled with drawings and messily scribbled names and messages in no time. She suspects they're only paying this much attention to her because of her hitai-ate. They ooh and aah over her katana, but she refuses to draw it (partially because she's not yet confident she can hold it without somehow cutting her own fingers off). The matron doesn't stop fussing over her, only calming down slightly when she reassures her that her leg will heal just fine (that, and her smile had begun to get strained. The matron's always been good at spotting deception). When one of the children asks where she went, she pauses and glances over at the matron, who nods quietly – the matron has always emphasized honesty.

"I fought in the war," she explains. The girls gasp dramatically and the boys are suddenly much more interested in her, clamoring for war stories. She can't help but go quiet as she remembers what really went on in the war. Well, as the matron says, honesty. "It's horrible," she says quietly, and the boys quiet down (the girls are already quiet). "So many people don't come back from it. It sounds nice when they say that someone died for their country – but you all know what it's really like, your parents aren't here. Because some of them didn't some back from war." She looks out the window at the darkness outside. "I almost didn't make it back, either." Inside, some of the children are sniffling at the reminder that they don't have parents. A boy who'd yelled particularly loudly, who's old enough to remember his parents leaving for the same war Hibari fought in and never coming back, has unshed tears in his eyes. It's hard to remember that they're supposed to be so much younger than her mentally, when they all have the same eyes that express their understanding of death.

The matron rounds them all upstairs for bed and lets Hibari stay in the living room, staring out the window. She comes back an hour later and sits down beside her on the couch. She doesn't miss how Hibari had tensed when she'd heard the matron open the door, and how her hands had automatically strayed towards a pouch that wasn't there. The matron gathers her in her arms and holds her for a good ten minutes before Hibari starts to feel suffocated and politely murmurs that she's going to go to bed.

The matron obviously gave away her bed when the new war orphans came pouring in, but there's a spare room where the orphanage helpers usually stay when they have to stay overnight to take care of a sick child or some other emergency. It's a shame she doesn't get the chance to stay for more than one night.

* * *

Hibari wakes up screaming and almost snaps the matron's neck when she carelessly goes to wake her up. If she'd had a sharp object on her, the matron would be dead right now.

* * *

The next morning she grabs her things and leaves, thanking the matron for everything and promising to visit. The matron watches her go with sad eyes but doesn't stop her. Someone who can't control killing instincts just can't live in the same place as young children, even if that person is still a young child herself. The matron tries to fool herself into thinking that Hibari will be okay.

Hibari heads over to the area nicknamed the "Shinobi district" because the buildings were all one-bedroom apartments partially subsidized for ninja. Taking up residence in one of these places is much simpler than renting out another place, but a portion of the resident ninja's income is taken to pay for rent. They're also conveniently close to Hokage tower, so Anbu can come calling at unholy hours if the Hokage decides he needs you for an emergency mission. She takes the first vacant room she comes across and gives the startled landlord her shinobi identification number. It's on the third floor out of five and is actually rather spacious (compared to her small room shared with five other kids at the orphanage, or her tiny tent in the war), and even has a small balcony. The place is very well kept, although now that a resident has moved in it'll be up to her to take care of housecleaning.

The landlord gives her the basic speech – the laundry machines are on the even-numbered floors, garbage is collected once a week but you can just dump it in this area if you want, no excess noise after 1am or before 5am, mind your own business and don't enter other people's apartments without permission because they're probably trapped to the teeth, if you rig any explosives grade C at most and only on the windows, you pay for any damage you incur, you can paint the walls if you want, don't hog all the hot water or the scary chuunin who lives on the fourth floor will be breathing down my neck again, an inspection is done when you move out which decides if you get your safety deposit back or not. She nods and smiles and grits her teeth, consciously stopping her hand from moving to her pouch. He might have noticed the tick in her hand, because he stops rambling and finally hands her the key. She thanks him and shuts the door in his face.

She doesn't have much, just her katana, a few sets of clothes she'd retrieved from the orphanage, and a few hundred ryo she'd withdrawn from the bank before she'd left for the war. Most of her money, including what her parents had left her, the accumulated amount from the Konoha orphan's fund, and the payment for the few D-rank missions she'd completed, is in the bank. Apparently, ninja parents are more aware that they could die any time and made sure that she would get the money in case something happened. She's thanked them more than once for their foresight. She doesn't need much furniture, there's already a table and chair and she doesn't plan on playing hostess anytime soon, but she'll need a futon, some kitchen supplies, and food. And preferably some better-fitting clothes. While malnutrition has stunted her growth, she's still grown somewhat and most of her older clothes don't fit anymore. She grabs all of the ryo she has on hand – it's not much, she'll need to stop by the bank as well – and her keys.

She's locking up when her neighour, a brown-haired older teen with a senbon in his mouth and a bandana, walks out. They stare at each other for a few seconds, she glancing at the senbon in his mouth (isn't that really dangerous?) and his gaze flickering to her hitai-ate and her crutch. He seems vaguely familiar but it's (again, obviously) been ten years since she's cracked open a _Naruto_ book and she's been actively going out of her way to avoid any of the 'canon' characters. He closes his door and locks it, turning to her.

"Aren't you a bit young to be playing ninja?" She tries not to scowl but probably fails. She's short for her age and hasn't gone through puberty yet.

"I'm ten," she snaps, and glares when his eyes widen-

"You're a girl?"

...

She struggles not to try and stab him. He's at least a chuunin, he's wearing the green flak jacket. She'll probably fail (it's tempting nonetheless). He seems to immediately realize what he said and sighs, scratching the back of his head.

"That came out wrong. Sorry. Shiranui Genma." His head tilts forwards in a bow. She follows suite, bending a bit lower since he's her superior.

"Naruse Hibari." His eyes widen again and she stares at him. _Now what?_

"You're the genin that got pushed into the war?" _Oh_. Wait, since when had she become famous?

"I wasn't the only one."

"Only one that survived, though." That takes her breath out in a whoosh, and she feels like she's been sucker-punched. The other orphans all moved out before leaving for the war - she hadn't even recognized Itou - so she hadn't known. That means that Itou is dead too, and probably never got to give the photo back to Satsuki-Setsuna's family. She places a trembling hand against the railing beside her and lowers her gaze. Seven orphan genin had been pushed into the war. Only one had come back.

There's a quiet sigh and she lifts her eyes dully to stare at Genma again. He looks incredibly uncomfortable and the vindictive side of her is pleased.

"I'm sorry, I though you knew. Everyone else in the village knew." Hibari looks away again.

"I only woke up a few days ago," she says quietly, knowing Genma can hear her perfectly. "I haven't had much time for socializing." Or anyone to socialize with, really. The matron probably knew, but didn't want to burden her with the bad news so soon. She'd considered each of the now dead genin her own children, after all.

Genma's eyes zero in on her cast. He scratches his head awkwardly again.

"Hey, you going somewhere? Need a hand?" Is that an apology? It's certainly a useful offer – it'll be a lot easier lugging home a futon and groceries and supplies, and she won't have to make multiple trips. Just to make sure he knows what he's in for, though...

"I suppose a pack mule would be useful." She smiles to show that she's teasing, but gestures to her crutch to say that yes, she really does need a pack mule. Genma laughs and puts away his senbon, willing to help out the ten year old.

"Alright then. Shiranui Genma, pack mule for the day. First stop?"

"Hmmm... Do you know any good futon shops?" Genma considers the question.

"Nope. But my friend does. Hang on." She barely has time to grab her crutch before he's swept her up and more or less thrown her over his shoulder. He's already begun running across rooftops when she finally remembers how to speak again.

"I CAN _WALK_, DAMN IT!" They get a few raised eyebrows, and it's probably only because Genma and his antics are so well known that they aren't stopped and questioned by Anbu. Despite her protests, she's laughing when he finally sets her down in front of another house. She puts the crutch down and smoothens out her wind-swept hair while he knocks on the door, hollering for a 'Raidou.' A few seconds later, a grumpy-looking man about the same age as Genma with a scar across the left side of his face answers the door.

"Genma, what-" He pauses when he sees Hibari. "... I want nothing to do with your kidnapping attempts, Genma. Return the kid." Hibari laughs again, still giddy from flying across rooftops. The two men turn to stare at her and she looks away, still snickering. She's left her hitai-ate at home; hopefully she's inconspicuous enough that no one will recognize her as the 'genin that survived the war.'

"Raidouuuuu-" Genma drags the other man's name out imploringly. "She moved in beside me and needs some stuff. I don't know where to get it, you got it all for me when you kicked me out last year" – more snickers from Hibari – "so could you help her out?" He gives pathetically shameless and ridiculously effective puppy eyes for a seventeen year old. Apparently it works, because Hibari hears a long-suffering sigh as Raidou turns around.

"Let me get my jacket." Genma cheers happily like a kid and impulsively hugs Hibari – who promptly digs two fingers into where his solar plexus would have been if his flak jacket hadn't been shielding him. She immediately gasps and apologizes but the damage has been done. His eyes widen and he stares at her. This time, it seems he really sees her, the ten year old that just went through hell and back and, despite still being able to laugh normally, definitely isn't fine. "I'm back- Genma, what did you do _now_?" Raidou is back and he sighs, tapping Genma gently on the head. "I'm sorry; I failed to housebreak him properly," he says to Hibari, who gives a small smile. "Namiashi Raidou." He inclines his head in a slight bow. Hibari returns the gesture, bending a bit lower.

"Naruse Hibari." There's a fractional widening of his eyes, but he's probably already realized she wasn't a normal kid when Genma asked him to help her move into a ninja residence. He smiles reassuringly and gestures to the stairs.

"Shall we go?" Hibari pauses...

"Can we go by the roofs again?" Genma's grin comes back full-force now and he gives a short bark of a laugh that she decides she likes.

"Sure, Princess." She blinks at the new nickname he's given her (secretly she's happy with it), blushing, because she didn't notice earlier but he's really hot, damn it (and she likes to think that her mental age is an average of the two to factor in mental regression during those mind-numbing infant days because it makes her feel less pedophilic). He turns around this time and kneels down. She happily clambers on, forgetting her crutch, which Raidou grabs behind them. He rattles off a location to Genma and they begin flying across the rooftops, Hibari secretly grinning like a fool on Genma's back as the wind blows in her face (the two guys can tell that she's happy though, and it pleases them that they were able to make her smile). _Yeah_, she thinks, _I'll be okay_.

* * *

**A/N**

So, another self insert fic to add to the growing community. I got caught up in Naruto self-insert fics after finding Dreaming of Sunshine. Personally, my favourite is probably Déjà vue no Jutsu right now. I'm not used to writing in present tense, so if I've made any grammar mistakes please point them my way!

I have no idea when the next chapter will be out, to be honest.

**Edit June 9, 2014:** Fixed up grammar, reworded a few things. No changes in plot whatsoever.

SUPER LONG BLURB ABOUT MY THOUGHTS WHILE I WAS WRITING THIS CHAPTER AHEAD THAT WILL PROBABLY BE IN EACH CHAPTER FEEL FREE TO SKIP IF NOT INTERESTED IN MY REASONING but please read before you ask questions uvub

* * *

I think perhaps I crammed too much into this chapter... I might have been a bit too vague in the beginning – this self insert is an orphan (re)born about two years before the second ninja war ended. Her parents died when she was about a year old, in the last year of the war. She grew up as an orphan, and despite her best attempts she wasn't able to emulate a baby's normal behavior and was labeled a prodigy. In my Naruto headcanon, all orphans are sent to the ninja academy first (come on, it's a ninja village), and those who don't fail horribly move on. Hibari passed the tests just fine but was only average in everything else, so the academy gave up on making her into something special and stuck her on an ordinary team. Honestly though, she probably didn't realize it was a ninja academy until the second year when they suddenly began teaching taijutsu and the academy jutsus. They're tricky like that.

Now, my self-insert can't remember the details of Naruto well. She's only read the entire series through once, so she knows all the big stuff and the major details, but nothing else.

She's also a coward and wants to live past the third ninja war, which she's been stuck in the middle of. It's actually the second-last year of the war, but she doesn't know that. All she knows is that the war more or less ends soon after the mission to Kannabi bridge, which she'll probably only hear about if Obito dies. Her surviving relies on remembering the main events of Naruto, so she won't want to change anything up at first initially.

_Initially._

Before the war, her attitude was more or less "don't become a ninja, keep your head down," but she was duped into passing the tests and somewhere along the way she stopped resisting, probably because Konoha really needed more ninja and the instructors really weren't giving her a choice. She assumed that she wouldn't be pushed into the war until she was a chuunin at least (which she had no intention of becoming). Surprise, surprise. During the war, her attitude was simply, "survive."

A quick note on Ino-Shika-Cho suddenly looking out for her: consider, everyone else is probably either in their late teens or are prodigious chuunin like Kakashi. Konoha is probably the most moral out of the big five shinobi nations. Plus, she's the only ten year old on the field. Sadly, most other ninja don't have the power to protect her on the field, and if they get distracted doing so other people might die, people that, sadly, are probably more important than her. So she's been pretty much left to survive on her own. But the Ino-Shika-Cho actually have the power to protect her, plus Inoichi, being the ninja equivalent of a shrink, would know how traumatizing a war can be for a lonesome ten year old. He has friends and family and age to help him get through it – he assumes she has none of it. Seeing her cutting certainly didn't help his train of thought. Therefore I like to think that he'd be the most concerned about her.

She's not exactly a moral person, as the report that Shikaku found says that she didn't join her teammates when they went back to help their teacher, and her primary course of action is always to save herself before anyone else. That doesn't mean she doesn't feel like the world's biggest piece of shit for doing so, however. And it's not like she's purposely using her allies as meat shields.

_Yet_ :D


	2. Green Jacket are Trying to Kill Me

**Warnings:** Some profanity, sexual references. Nothing big in this chapter, I think.

**Word Count:** ~9k

**Summary:** A self-insert who's main priority is to survive, whose morality is as straight as a double rainbow, who is literally thrust into a war at the physical age of ten and has more mental issues than the hair ties that she keeps on losing. And she thought university was hard. SI OC, third shinobi war and onwards. A series of interconnected stories, not in chronological order.

Unbeta'd. Please point any spelling and grammar mistakes my way.

* * *

**Strange Days and Stranger Nights**

_Green Jackets are Trying to Kill Me (War arc: 2/3)_

_(In which Naruse Hibari figures out what's wrong with her chakra, gets a huge offer, and tries to survive training with Gai.)_

The walls are still covered in blood when Hibari wakes up with a jerk, heart racing, eyes scanning the vicinity for danger. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, wiping the sweat off her forehead. When she sits up and opens her eyes again, the blood is gone. A glance outside reveals it's sometime early, before 6am (ninja don't usually own clocks; the ticking is too aggravating). The sun has just barely begun to peak through the sky. She lies back down, sighing.

For the past week, she hasn't been able to get more than a few hours of sleep in a row before the nightmares become too vivid, waking her up. She's already woken up screaming twice, and the first time she had to stumble half-blind to the bathroom to throw up. She knows it's probably a result of not dealing with the mental trauma, but it's too late now to fix that. She hopes it will go away with time; her neighbours might start to get irritated otherwise.

The absolute worst dreams are the ones where she wakes up and coming back was a dream and she's still in the war. They don't make her scream, but instead drive her into a state of panic for a good couple of hours afterwards as she tries to convince herself that she really has returned. The urge to cut hasn't surfaced yet but it's only a matter of time.

Oh Kami, if she really were ten years old she would already be insane, or even more mentally traumatized than she already is. Sometimes, she's glad that the other orphans didn't make it through. Like most wounds, with war, it isn't the initial injury, but all the complications afterwards that kill.

She gets up slowly, grabbing the crutch lying beside her futon. She remembers how shopping with Genma and Raidou had gone ("How about this one?" "It's hot pink with sparkles, Genma. No.") and smiles. Along with the futon, they'd lugged back a rice cooker, a small couch, laundry detergent, a low table and four cushions, two pots, a pan, a complete set of eating utensils and bowls and plates and cups between the three of them. Then they'd gone back out and stocked her fridge with actual food (Raidou) and snacks (Genma), paying for at least a third of it each, despite her protests. She'd gotten a few sets of clothes later by herself.

Apparently Genma and Raidou fought in the war earlier and still have a month left of down time before they're to be called back. Raidou's already invited her over to dinner three times (she's accepted each time; Raidou is a damn good cook), with Genma inadvertently tagging along each time. He's also offered to teach her how to cook some simple things; she's due for a lesson/lunch later today. She suspects they think she's too skinny; looking at her skeletal frame, she admits she is probably dangerously underweight. Soldier pills aren't made for long-term consumption, especially not for the body of a growing child nearing puberty.

She's sure by now they've both realized that she's much smarter than your average ten year old, even for ninja standards. They probably just attributed it to the war, and she's happy to let them make that assumption. She's glad that they don't treat her like a helpless child and don't balk at letting her do some things on her own, such as helping with dishes (Genma was particularly delighted that evening; usually Raidou makes him clean up). And they don't question that she knows her way around a knife.

She hobbles her way to the bathroom, flipping the lights on and closing the door behind her. Twenty minutes later (what feels like a huge luxury; in war you should have been ready five minutes ago, no matter how quickly you manage to get ready in the morning) she kneels down on the cushion in front of the low table and sets a glass of water down, munching on a reheated bun.

She's just about finishing up her breakfast when a shadow falls over the table. Startling, she almost chokes on the bun as she reflexively throws the glass of water at the intruder. The Anbu manages to catch the glass before it hits his (or her?) porcelain mask but gets a mask-full of water. Judging by the way he aborts an attempt to lift the mask, it's probably gotten in his eyes. Hibari slowly moves her hand away from her pouch, eyes not leaving the masked figure.

"... Is there something you need, Anbu-san?" There's something just a little unnerving about a masked man covered completely in a black robe towering over you in your own living room.

"Hokage-sama wishes to see you." The deep, baritone voice is unmistakably masculine and she can't help but startle, then still again sheepishly.

"Um... Okay?" The figure doesn't move. "... Oh, you mean right now?" A nod. "Oh, okay..." Hibari stands up shakily, leaning on her crutch. The Anbu holds out a hand and she slowly takes it –

– and then is kneeling on the ground outside of Hokage tower, trying to keep her breakfast down. Goddamned Shunshin. The Anbu flickers away immediately, leaving those who didn't see her initial appearance wondering why a little girl is kneeled over in front of the tower. "Bastard," she mutters angrily under her breath as she stands up, leaning on the crutch.

Just to spite the Anbu that ferried her here, she takes her merry time climbing the tower, even purposefully making a wrong turn once. She finally makes it to the secretary, who's actually on a higher up floor, and confirms her appointment, then backtracks, finally stopping in front of the double doors of the Hokage's office. She knocks three times.

"Come in," the gravely voice of the Hokage announces, slightly muffled through the thick wooden doors.

"Excuse me." She opens a door and steps in, closing the door behind her and bowing. "Hokage-sama, you called for me?" She tries not to scream out loud at the sight of Namikaze Minato and his three infamous students. The brats stare at her crutch.

"I called them here for the same reason I called you here," he smiles reassuringly, puffing on his pipe, and she prays that it's not for a joint mission (isn't she still supposed to be on leave?). "I called you here to congratulate you." _Huh?_ "Uchiha Obito." _What_. The oh so familiar black haired, goggle-wearing Uchiha boy that was standing beside Namikaze _fucking_ Minato walks over to stand beside her. "Naruse Hibari." He takes something out from under his desk, and while Hibari is aware of what it means, her mind refuses to make the connection. "From this day forwards, you two are chuunin of Konohagakure. Congratulations."

...

_What_.

She's been so caught up in that fact that she's finally out of the war that she'd completely forgotten about her potential promotion. On of the field commanders had mentioned it but she'd laughed it off – her, chuunin? There's no way she's actually at chuunin level-

...

_Oh_.

Now she sees.

Chuunin are eligible – expected – to participate in the war.

She ignores Obito's excited whoop and stares at the green flak jacket on the Hokage's desk. Obito wastes no time running over and grabbing the jacket, bowing repeatedly and laughing with glee. Hibari is much more reserved, slowly grasping the jacket with the hand not holding her crutch and staring at it as though she's scared of it (she is).

"Hey, hey, isn't this great?" Obito leans sharply into her personal space, grinning, and misses Hibari's instinctive twitch of her hand. Minato seems to notice, and holds the boy back before he can lean any closer. It doesn't stop the boy's mouth, though. "We're chuunin now!" He spins around to point a particularly rude finger at the silver haired teen standing beside the kunoichi of the team. "Just you wait, Bakashi! This time I'll make jounin before you." Kakashi snorts.

"At the rate you're going, Rin will become Hokage before you become jounin." Purposefully or not, he's insulted Rin as well as Obito in that remark, but Rin, the love-struck pubescent girl that she is, takes it as a compliment and giggles, blushing. Obito scowls and begins another shouting match with the Hatake orphan as Hibari watches mutely.

"Not excited about your promotion?" Hibari jumps at Minato's voice coming from beside her. He smiles gently. She looks down at the jacket in her hand and her grip tightens, as though perhaps if she squeezes tightly enough she'll be able to choke the life out of her promotion.

"... Thrilled," she says flatly. She really wants to throw the jacket on the ground and run away screaming. Minato blinks at her tone. The Hokage watches their interaction with sharp eyes. "If he wants to toss me back in the war, he should just say so." She mumbles it as quietly as she can, but apparently it's not quiet enough for Namikaze (_fucking_) Minato, who manages to hear her words. A slight shift in body weight is the only indication that he's surprised. Sighing, she turns to the Hokage and bows. "Thank you," she says in a dull, inflectionless tone. _And fuck you, too_. As though he can hear her thoughts, the Hokage's eyes crinkle in sadness but he otherwise doesn't react.

"Alright, guys, we've got a mission to get to." Minato bows to the Hokage and ushers his rowdy team out the doors, each of the brats bowing quickly before they exit. The door shuts ominously, leaving Hibari alone (save for Anbu) with the Hokage. He puffs on his pipe again and regards her quietly.

"I-" he begins, but Hibari interrupts him.

"I'm not at chuunin level yet." She's surprised and embarrassed at her own audacity, but it's too late to take the words back now. The Hokage doesn't answer the unspoken question of '_So why am I getting promoted?_' He's not obliged to. But it stirs up the rage, the indignation, the hatred simmering inside her. He could at least have the balls to admit that he's sending her to her death by promoting her well beyond when she's ready for it. She'll probably be thrown right back into the war again, where she just barely managed to come out with no permanently crippling injuries this time. She's just about ready to bow and leave and panic in private when he speaks up again.

"I'd recommend Maito Gai as a sparring partner if you want to improve your taijutsu," he says casually. "I believe he is an acquaintance of your neighbor, Shiranui Genma. You still have fifteen weeks of down time." Hibari pauses. Has he been spying on her? The thought chills her to the bone. She bows again and exits quietly, still holding her jacking in a death choke.

* * *

She spends the rest of the morning pacing back and forth in her apartment, cleaning and doing random chores, trying to convince herself that everything will be okay (it's not working). When finally it's time to visit Raidou, she's forced to stop working. She's still distracted while she cooks with Raidou, something he notices but doesn't comment on (yet). She's snapped out of her dazed state when there's a knock on the door, followed by a familiar voice.

"Waifu-chan, Princess-chaaaaan! I'm hoooome!" Hibari rolls her eyes fondly. Over the past week, Genma seems to have decided that they're playing house, with Genma posing as the father, Raidou as the mother, and Hibari as their daughter. It's a tiny bit awkward because she may or may not have a crush on Genma, but it's comfortable for the most part, and it's funny playing along and watching Raidou turn red. Genma hasn't started the sexual innuendoes yet but it's only a matter of time. Hibari learned early on that Genma is bisexual and proud of it. She doesn't care – Genma is Genma, and when you can very well die on your next mission, the sex of your bedmate isn't very high on your list of concerns. Marriage and love are different, especially in the big clans. It's different for civilians, where sex means marriage means babies means family.

Genma opens the unlocked door and steps in comfortably... Followed by two other guys, one around his age and one younger. The older one looks a tad awkward and the other looks totally at home... And is that green spandex? Oh my. "Honey, I brought guests!" Genma says cheerfully. He then flops dramatically over Hibari, who's used to this by now. "Hi Princess, miss me?" Hibari smiles a fake and cheerful smile.

"Of course! Where would I be without my sugar daddy?" There's a sputter from the stiff-looking guy behind Genma. Genma himself laughs.

"That's my girl." He ruffles her hair fondly and she leans into his touch a bit. He backs up to introduce his guests. "You guys know Raidou already. This is my neighbor, Hibari. Hibari, these weirdoes –" he says the word fondly as he gestures to them " – are my old teammates, Ebisu and Gai." Ebisu, the awkward looking one, coughs and inclines his head. He looks relieved for some reason. Gai smiles with all his (amazingly white) teeth and gives Hibari a thumbs up.

"It's my pleasure to meet Genma's esteemed daughter!" From behind them, Raidou chokes slightly with laughter, as Ebisu twitches. Who knew Gai had a good sense of humour? Hibari smiles and bows.

"It's very nice to meet you too, Gai-senpai, Ebisu-senpai." She retreats back into the kitchen to help Raidou, who's grumbling something about Gai and a bottomless pit.

They end up devouring everything Raidou and Hibari made in minutes, and drag her and Raidou out for more food. Surprisingly, Gai isn't as loud as she expects. He uses big words and never whispers, but it can't be called a shout yet. Ebisu and Genma squabble briefly over dango or fen sī, a gelatinous bean curd noodle snack. In the end, the majority picks dango. They go to a medium-sized shop in an unfamiliar area of Konoha, where they seem to be regulars; they get escorted to a booth and three plates of dango and five cups of tea are in front of them before Hibari's even had the chance to look at the menu. Her bewilderment must have shown, because Raidou laughs.

"Our graduating class came here a lot to hang out," he explains, handing her a stick of dango he managed to save. He's already munching on a second stick. Genma's taken out his senbon, replacing it with the empty dango skewer.

"With everyone scattered because of the war, we haven't had a chance to all meet up in a while," Ebisu remarks. "Once the war ends we should come here again." The guys all murmur in agreement. Raidou glances at Hibari, concerned. She's become very quiet all of a sudden, and hasn't even taken a bite out of her dango yet.

"What's wrong?" he asks, and four sets of eyes shift to her. She drops her eyes.

"Nothing. I ..." She huffs and takes a small bite out of her dango. "I guess I'm a bit jealous. I wasn't close to most of the people in my graduating class."

"Most? Then there are some you are close to, yes?" Gai asks. Ebisu has already caught on and sends him a warning glance but it's too late. She doesn't mind; Gai means well.

"The rest were orphans," Hibari explains quietly. They all know how that story ends. With that, she shoves the rest of the dango into her mouth to avoid having to answer any more questions. There's an awkward silence as she chews and swallows. _Really, guys? I'm supposed to be the introvert here_. "Anyways, it's no big deal. Besides," she tries to wave off their concerned looks. " This way I get to mooch off of you guys." Genma snorts, and the tension eases up.

"Like you don't already mooch off of me 'nd Raidou, Princess." She smiles widely.

"You offered first, _dad_." That gets a strange look from the waitress that's come to clear their plates and bring more dango. Genma does the bark-laugh that Hibari loves and replaces his senbon, pushing a plate towards her.

"Mooch away then."

* * *

Yamanaka Saya is a woman who embodies grace. Each step, each movement, even the minute flutter of her eyes is perfectly calculated to bring out maximum results with minimum effort. She's also a cuddly drunk and has a secret weakness for dogs, something only her mother and husband is aware of. She had always been envious of the Yamanaka clan's silky, straight blonde hair, and for the first year or so after she had moved in with her husband had felt like a sore thumb sticking out amongst the sea of blondes with her soft brown curls. Luckily, Inoichi is adept enough in psychology to boost his wife's self-confidence whenever it wanes.

It's partially the reason the she agreed to the Omiai and later the actual marriage; regardless of whether it's sincere or not, he always does his best to make her feel special, to make her feel loved. It shows that, even if he doesn't _really_ love her, he at least wants her to be happy with this arrangement, and he doesn't seem to really mind at all (she's picked up more than a few psychology and body language reading tricks in the two years she's been a Yamanaka).

So she's fairly surprised when she actually receives a letter written directly from her husband. They'd agreed to not exchange letters, because Inoichi can't tell her everything that goes on (and wouldn't want to anyways) but doesn't want to lie to her either. Instead, she's agreed to make due with ensuring that he's alive and in one piece from the letters Chouza sends home to his mother (he and Shikaku aren't married yet, but Shikaku is engaged and trying to avoid his spitfire of a fiancée).

She's equal parts nervous and excited, wondering what could cause her husband to break their agreement and send a letter. She doesn't even get a third of the way down the letter before she throws it to the ground in a fit of rage and has to suppress the urge to murder a certain hat-wearing someone. She takes a few deeps breaths and picks up the letter again, reading it with a furious concentration that scares the maid that arrives with her usual afternoon tea, who scuttles off quickly before the clan head's wife's ire can fall on her.

When she's done reading the letter, she has to close her eyes for a few moments. She's more than willing to fulfill the... _Request_ that her husband has sent her, but the Hokage might not be as willing if he already has plans. She begins thinking about how to make him more willing. When the maid from before returns, it's to Yamanaka Saya staring straight at the wall in front of her, not moving a single inch, her eyes sharp and focused but not staring at anything in the room. The maid recognizes that look; she makes her retreat as quickly as she can and pities the target of the lady's ire. After all, it's widely known that there is no one that Yamanaka Saya can't get blackmail on.

* * *

"You have problems molding chakra?" Hibari wilts slightly under the combined stares of Genma, Raidou, Gai and Ebisu. A small slip up had led to Hibari unintentionally revealing that she has problems molding chakra. If she has time and nothing is distracting her (such as the setting for the academy exam), she can pull off the academy E-rank jutsus. She's majorly out of practice though, she's never even used them once during the war – there had never been enough time. She can reinforce her body with chakra just fine, able to run along the treetops, but can't do any form of tree walking (she improved her balance tremendously to compensate and hide that fact). She explains this to the guys, whose eyes all flicker to Gai.

"Alas, it is not the same problem with me," he explains. "I have no problems with molding chakra – my coils are just unfit to utilize ninjutsu and genjutsu. Now with experience and control, I can force it in a pinch." That makes sense; otherwise he'd be unable to use Kawarimi. "However, it seems as though you have problems with just molding chakra itself, but once molded, you can still use ninjutsu and genjutsu. Have you ever gotten a chakra examination?" She shakes her head.

A chakra examination is just as it sounds – the ninja being examined will be asked to perform exercises involving chakra usage while a Hyuuga watches with an active byakugan (a surprising amount of retired Hyuuga ninja volunteer their services this way if they aren't clan elders, something about fostering relationships with Konoha). Most people don't bother to get one as long as they can mold and use chakra; Hibari simply assumed before that it doesn't come as instinctively to her and never thought of getting her chakra checked.

"I would recommend you get one done, then," Ebisu advises, pushing his glasses up with a finger. "It might be enlightening. In any case, it won't hurt, and will help us figure out why you're having difficulties molding chakra. Your reserves probably aren't that big for that to be the reason for poor control." Hibari nods. Genma ruffles her hair affectionately.

"Well, Princess, I gotta go," he smirks. "Got a date."

"Girl or guy?" Hibari is familiar with this routine. Her crush on Genma had quickly proven to be just that – a crush – and she's happy in her spot as his and Raidou's sister-figure (or daughter-figure, sometimes).

"Guy."

"Cut off his balls if he's a dick." Her smile is terrifyingly angelic. Ebisu actually chokes on his tea and Gai's wide smile falters.

"Will do," Genma replies, standing up. Raidou snorts and flicks a balled up napkin at Genma, who dodges and waltzes off, whistling. Hibari takes a sip of her tea and smiles again. Ebisu inches away.

_Yeah, this isn't bad at all_.

She really loves Konoha. She just really hates the war.

* * *

Yamanaka Saya smiles serenely at the Hokage. He tries to resist banging his head on the desk. It's rare for a civilian to visit Hokage tower outside of a mission request, even if said civilian is a clan head's wife. When such a civilian does show up and request an audience with the Hokage, it's never a good sign. Not for the first time, Hiruzen curses himself for allowing Danzo to slide the seven orphans' deployments under the table.

He knows he's not exactly the kind and compassionate Hokage that the civilian side sees him. Those sides of him are there, but he hasn't survived the warring states, the founding of Konoha, and two wars by being kind. He earned his nickname God of Shinobi by being a fearsome and ruthless ninja, and the ninja of Konoha knows this. It's the only kind of Kage they'll follow. He makes dirty decisions for the good of the village, and shoulders all the blame; that is part of what it means to be Hokage.

Dirty decisions, such as sending seven genin orphans into a brutal and bloody war, where it would be more convenient if they died to avoid the political ramifications of child soldiers, no matter how pressed for ninja they had been. Such as promoting the only genin that had survived so that he can send her back into the war, this time without her inexperience or rank to use against him. And even going so far as to allow Danzo to fake her death and recruit her into Root if she became too... _troublesome_, those had been Danzo's words.

He has been expecting some complaints or concerns from the field commanders. He certainly has not been expecting a clan head's wife to come at the behest of her husband and demand to see the infamous genin (now chuunin) and ask to adopt her into the Yamanaka clan.

But he's supremely grateful and now owes the Yamanaka clan a favour for giving him a legitimate excuse to pry Naruse Hibari away from Danzo's clutches. A clan child, even adopted, won't be able to fall under the radar so easily, especially if a clan head is the one who's taken an interest. He knows this won't be enough to completely deter Danzo, but even he won't risk the combined wrath of the Yamanaka, Akimichi, and Nara clans. They may not be flashy and infamous like the Uchiha or Hyuuga, but they are stable and dependable, and most importantly, essential pillars of Konoha.

He turns his attention back to Yamanaka Saya and agrees, setting up an appropriate time and sending an Anbu to deliver the message. He doesn't miss the brief stink eye she gives him before she leaves.

* * *

"Hibari-nee!" A small red blur crashes into the aforementioned girl and she winces, shifting her crutch to stay upright. At 102 centimeters and about 17 kilograms, four-year-old Tatara is all bony knees and elbows and has surprisingly effective (and painful) tackles. The matron pries the red burr off of her greets her warmly as she steps into the orphanage. The children greet her enthusiastically, always happy to have visitors; especially cool ninja visitors. Although she doesn't wanted to, she brings along her new flak jacket for them to drool over (hopefully only figuratively). There's some worry on the matron's face when she sees the jacket. None of the kids ask any questions about the war, thankfully. She bears with them for an hour or so before they toddle off of take their afternoon nap.

She and the matron go off to get some ice cream. They sit on a bench outside in the cool autumn air and talk about trivial things. Somehow it comes around to the topic of where Hibari's staying. The matron fusses over her weight as she reassures the matron that she's okay, yes she's eating just fine, yes she knows how to cook, and no she doesn't need any help. She leaves out the fact that she's friends with a seventeen and nineteen year old guy; some civilians still have problems believing that she's only friends with them and that they aren't taking advantage of her in some way (it's closer to the opposite, actually. And _ew_, seeing as she considers them her brothers).

She's getting up to leave when an Anbu agent appears next to her (_god damn it stop doing that_), ducking the half-eaten ice-cream cone she flings at his or her head (luckily it misses anyone else, although there's a surprised shout). The masked agent hands her a letter and vanishes, leaving Hibari annoyed and the matron stunned.

"Was that...?"

"Mmm-hmm. Anbu. Wonder what Hokage-sama wants now." Her tone comes off a bit too flippant and the matron's face creases in worry as she opens the letter and skims it. It seems the Hokage wants to see her again in two days. "Don't worry, I still have fifteen weeks of break." _Or at least I should_. The matron doesn't look reassured. Hibari isn't either. Fifteen weeks to get strong enough to survive whatever the Hokage plans on throwing at her (even though she's pretty sure she knows). _Joy_.

She resists the urge to crumple the letter.

* * *

The hospital is understaffed and over capacity. Nurses run around haplessly, trying to get everything done at once. It's only nine in the morning. Hibari awkwardly avoids a nurse that runs by with a pitcher of coffee. Coffee is rather exotic in Konoha and only used when there's no other way to stay awake. It hints at the amount of activity going on. She feels guilty when she makes her way up to the receptionist's swamped desk and requests a chakra examination. The receptionist looks relieved and shoves a form in her face.

"Oh, good. We have a bunch of openings today. Fill out this form and bring it to the office in the west side on the third floor." Hibari takes the form, internally groaning at the though of having to climb more stairs with her crutch. She sits down with a swiped pen and fills out the form.

In the office on the third floor, she hands the form to the receptionist, who directs her to a room. Inside, a middle-aged man with long, black hair and pupil-less eyes greets her and looks over her form.

"You are unaware of your chakra affinity?" She shakes her head in confirmation. He opens a drawer and pulls out a small, rectangular piece of paper. "Chanel chakra into this." She does with a bit of difficulty, and is pleasantly surprised to see it go up in flames. _I'm a firebender. Cool_. When she looks up, the Hyuuga's famous Byakugan is activated and staring at her. It seems to be following something as his gaze travels around her body, and if she didn't know better she would have been disturbed. "Hmmm, this..." He tilts his head, musing. "Mold some chakra." She does, grimacing at the feeling of the chakra pushing and pulling and not willing to obey before forcing it to with some difficulty. Is it just her imagination or is it just a little bit easier do to than it was four months ago, despite the lack of practice? The Hyuuga seems to have come to a conclusion.

"You have a large imbalance of spiritual and physical chakra," he explains. "You seem to be producing about thirty percent extra spiritual chakra than physical chakra. Are you aware of anyone in your family with similar problems?" She shakes her head. She has a pretty good guess as to why she has so much more spiritual chakra, but it can't be shared with anyone. The Hyuuga 'hmms' again and writes something down on the blank space on her form. "It is not unusual for the body to produce different quantities of spiritual and physical chakra at a younger age, due to rapid changes in their body," he says. "Usually more physical chakra is produced, though, and without such at a large disparity. However, you are still young, and your body is still growing and changing. Given a few years, the disparity should decrease." And that might be fine, if she actually had a few years, only she has less than fifteen weeks. The Hyuuga frowns slightly. "At least, that is what I would hope. I am no medic. I have never seen a case like this – it is much harder to produce spiritual chakra in excess. I do not wish to give false hope before reaching the root of the problem." He has her run some chakra exercises – stick a leaf to her forehead, reinforce her body, coat something with chakra, perform a henge – and reaffirms that her overwhelming abundance of spiritual chakra is getting in her way when she tries to grasp both spiritual and physical chakra, and she ends up grabbing too much spiritual chakra and molding only a miniscule amount of chakra. Combined with her lack of chakra control, she can barely mold enough chakra for the three academy jutsus. At least this explains why the medical ninjutsu her teammate had taught her had been so easy. In the end, he advises coming back in a year and during that time simply practicing chakra control exercises and working out more to try and produce more physical chakra.

She thanks him and leaves, wondering if she was an idiot during the war. Spiritual chakra is produced through concentration and meditation, while physical chakra is produced through physical activity. It's why most of the time ninja only need to concentrate to form spiritual chakra when molding chakra, because they already move so much that they have more than enough physical chakra. She certainly moved enough in the war – perhaps even enough to match the spiritual chakra. But she'd simply assumed that her chakra control sucked and hadn't bothered practicing during the war. A kawarimi or two might have greatly lessened the amount of injuries she'd gotten, maybe even gotten her out of that douton jutsu.

She resists the temptation to bang her head repeatedly on the white hospital wall as she walks out of the room. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.

* * *

Hibari wakes up to the sound of an explosion and her mind rewinds to two weeks into the war again. She grabs a kunai from the pouch on the ground beside the futon and is instantly on guard. Her eyes take in her surroundings – a small apartment room – and she sighs, flopping back down. There's a scream of "MITARASHI ANKO! WHAT HAVE I SAID ABOUT SETTING OFF EXPLOSIVES IN THE RESIDENTIAL AREA?!" She glances out the window to see three grown men in flak jackets chasing after a purple-haired kid, who is avoiding them with surprising dexterity. She groans and covers her eyes with an arm. There's no more point in sleeping anymore, it's late enough and she has an appointment with the Hokage. She reluctantly gets up to wash up and make breakfast.

Another thing she misses from her old life is the simple invention of toast. Given the Asiatic setting of Naruto, toast does not exist here. The closest is perhaps raisin bread, and she still doesn't like raisins. She cracks an egg raw over her rice – it's an acquired taste, but one she's grown fond of. Something that she learned here is that chakra helps boost the immune system immensely; active ninja are much less susceptible to illness and bacteria. It also boosts one's body's natural healing rate. It's another perk of constantly risking your life for the village, she supposes. She finishes her breakfast, locks up, and heads to the Hokage tower.

She nods politely to a young, chocolate-haired woman, wearing a dark green dress that looks strangely western style, waiting inside the Hokage's office as well.

"You called for me, Hokage-sama?" The Hokage puffs on his pipe and nods, and then turns his head to face the woman.

"Saya-san, this is Naruse Hibari." The woman, who's been staring at her ever since she walked in, beams and interrupts whatever the Hokage was going to say next.

"A pleasure to finally meet you! I asked the Hokage to set up a meeting for us. My husband's told me a bit about you, but he never mentioned you were this cute!" Hibari blinks rapidly. Husband? Three guesses then... "I'm Yamanaka Saya, Inoichi's wife. I wanted to talk to you about something." ..._The fuck?_ Hibari plasters a smile onto her face and bows politely. Yamanaka Saya bows to the Hokage, thanking him, and somehow bustles Hibari out of the room without touching her. The next thing she knows, she's standing in front of an ice cream stand and Yamanaka Saya is asking her what flavor she would like. She blinks a couple more times and mumbles the first flavor she sees – peach – and thanks the woman. She blinks again and they're sitting down on a bench, holding ice cream in their hands and _how in the world does she move so fast in such a tight dress_? She fidgets awkwardly.

"Um... Yamanaka-san..."

"Oh no dear, just call me Saya," the woman smiles gently.

"... Saya-san, what did you want to talk to me about...?" At that, the woman's expression becomes somber.

"Inoichi told me about you." Hibari stiffens. "He didn't say much," Saya reassures her, picking up on her caution. "Just that you also fought in the war. And..." She lifts a hand up slowly and places it on Hibari's cheek. Hibari fights the urge to remove the hand- "And, if you ever want a family, we'd be honored if you came to us."

- and then her mind grinds to a halt and stops functioning.

_What?_

* * *

Her dreams take a violent turn for the worse that night, and she wakes up before the sun is even up, screaming and clawing at her throat where the kunai in her dreams had pierced her. She's so panicked she can't register what she's seeing, that she isn't in the war anymore.

Two rough hands grab her wrists and pull them away from her throat. Someone picks her up and cradles her small, thin body against a warm chest. She resists at first, squirming and flailing, but the arms holding her are too strong. Her screams turn into choked sobs. She finally recognizes the scratchy voice that belongs to Genma and turns to cling onto him tightly, as though he can ward away her nightmares. He whispers soothingly into her ear as he settles them both onto her small futon, dragging the covers over her but still holding onto her (it's not like she's going to let go, at any rate). She falls asleep without dreams this time.

* * *

She wakes up from a deep and comfortable sleep, eyes heavy and mind foggy. For a moment she blinks groggily, then burrows back into her pillow. She's momentarily confused when she realizes the pillow is... Laughing? She opens her eyes again and this time her eyes focus on a well-defined chest. She follows the chest upwards... And meets the face of Genma, who's chuckling quietly. She slowly remembers her nightmare and what had happened after, although it's a bit of a blur. Sitting up, she yawns and rubs her eyes. Genma sits up as well and ruffles her hair.

"Sleep well?" She nods, resisting the urge to burrow back into her futon. This is the fourth or fifth time he's done this for her, broken into her house when she was screaming her head off and holding her in his arms until she calms down. He's the only one that can randomly touch her without fear of her lashing out instinctively, the result of randomly hugging her over the course of two weeks (and getting multiple elbow jabs and things thrown at him in the process). There are still times when she slips up, and she doesn't think she'll ever stop tensing up when someone tries to touch her, but she's improving. At least she's stopped trying to stab people. And her cast has finally come off.

Genma stands up to go loot her fridge for breakfast, humming happily when he discovers last night's leftover udon that she Raidou made. He's not a picky eater at all, and would eat it cold if he was particularly impatient, but Hibari hates cold noodles and soup, so he heats it up over the stove.

Meanwhile, Hibari brushes her teeth, her brain still turning Yamanaka Saya's offer around in her head. It's been a little under a week since the offer and she still doesn't know what to do. Adoption by a clan means gaining the protection of said clan; and with the Yamanaka clan, that includes the Nara and Akimichi clans as well. It also means gaining the enemies of those clans as well, but the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, while famous, doesn't have any notable enemies, as opposed to someone like Namikaze Minato who has every last ninja in Iwa and Kumo gunning for his head.

The adoption isn't actually to Yamanaka Saya and Inoichi; she remains an orphan by technicality, but takes on the Yamanaka name and will move into the compound, if she accepts. However. The Yamanaka clan is a den full of psychologists and interrogators. The only things she has going for her is that, one, she has the support of the clan head, and two, no one is expecting to discover that she has memories of another life. Even so, does she want to live under their scrutiny for the rest of her life, no matter how well intended it is?

And then there's the whole 'avoid the canon characters' plan that she's already broken by becoming friends with Genma, Raidou, Gai and Ebisu. She knows of the butterfly/ripple effect. She also knows that plenty of events won't change without a miracle or a hell of a lot on intervention. The Yamanaka clan doesn't play a big part in the frontlines, so she figures she won't be changing much, so long as she doesn't get too involved with Ino and unintentionally influence something. It's not like she's going to join T&I anytime soon.

Genma and Raidou have advised her to take the offer. It's a great one as offers go, and sincere – Yamanaka Saya has taken an obvious liking to her. It will give her protection, maybe even pull her out of the war – as part of a clan, the clan gets to choose which members to send to war, so long as they meet a quota. They don't see any downsides. If she's to be honest with herself, the advantages greatly outweigh the only disadvantage, and even that can be circumvented by not hanging out in the clan compound as much. But...

But she's scared of the obligation.

To join a clan isn't just to gain their name. It means gaining their reputation, their honour, their history, and wearing it on your heart. It means representing them everywhere you go, especially on missions. It means all of your actions are traced back to your clan, and your every movement is subject to questioning by the clan. No matter how laid back the Yamanaka-Akimichi-Nara families are (compared to ancient bloodlines like the Hyuuga or Uchiha), they are still an old clan that survived the warring era and have the history to prove it.

She's always been horrible with responsibility.

To become a Yamanaka means that she can no longer act as a selfish orphan. She can no longer put herself first. She must protect the clan and its members, and as a Yamanaka ninja, she must protect Konoha with her life. Running will no longer be an option. She will not be the only one that takes the fall if she does.

It's that thought that chills her to the bone – that more than ever, she will be expected to die. For the clan, or the village, or her comrades – more than ever, that will be her duty.

She comes across this realization as she's finishing up her breakfast with Genma and comes to an answer. She meets up with Yamanaka Saya again and quietly refuses the offer, thanking her, unable to meet her eyes. She doesn't bring up the issue with Genma and Raidou again and when she doesn't move out after another week, they get the idea.

It's been a while since she's felt this disgusted with herself. As usual, she pushes through and ignores it. It's not the first time that she's run away from responsibility and it won't be the last.

* * *

"So... You're producing too much spiritual chakra compared to your physical chakra, and you're out of practice, and that's why you're having trouble molding chakra." Ebisu finishes reading the report from Hibari's chakra examination. When she'd subtly mentioned getting a tutor to help her with her chakra control, all eyes had swiveled to Ebisu. It appears he's already gained a reputation for being a good teacher. "Well, to be honest, there isn't a shortcut – just practice." He pushes his glasses up. "Personally, I would recommend tree walking – it trains your leg muscles, reaction time, balance, and chakra control all at once. I can supervise you, if you'd like." Hibari nods vigorously – she doesn't like the sound of trying to walk up trees vertically by herself. Even if she's lost her fear of heights and falling from a year of running through treetops, it's a different thing to have to run vertically up a tree, knowing you're getting further and further away from the ground... "You have the basics down – you can do the simpler chakra control exercises. Now it's just a matter of learning to mold more chakra, adjusting for your personal chakra imbalance, and doing it all on the run." He gestures to a tree in the training grounds they're standing in.

Genma and Raidou are standing off to the side, observing. Gai is reportedly off trying to convince Kakashi into accepting another challenge. Hibari closes her eyes and grabs at her chakra, forcing it to bend to her will and mix properly. She's been practicing all week and she's gotten better. Hopefully it will be enough. The theory is easy enough; coat the base of your feet with chakra, using it as an anchor or magnet of sorts. Finding out exactly how much chakra is needed for one's own weight is something generally found through trial and error, though, so she pumps as much chakra as she can into her feet. At least if she gets blown off she'll have space and time to adjust, rather than slipping two steps up and falling on her head. She doesn't think Ebisu will let that happen, but she doesn't want to chance it. He might be an advocate of no pain, no gain.

She sets off at a run to gain momentum; faltering slightly once she approaches the base of the tree because holy crap what is she doing this is clearly impossible, but barrels on forwards anyways, remembering a time when she didn't think it was possible for her to stab someone, and now she can do it without hesitation (she cuts her thoughts off before they can get more morbid).

It turns out the large (for her) amount of chakra she's pumped into her feet is just barely enough, and the moment her concentration wanes (about five steps up, when she realizes _Holy crap I'm walking on a tree_) her feet slide off. She's high enough that she can push off, flip, and land on her toes, trembling. _Holy crap that was scary_. Ebisu smiles at her encouragingly.

"You have the basic theory down. Now it's just a matter of practice." She foresees a lot of falling and flipping in the future and sighs. Copying what she'd seen in the anime, she takes out a kunai to mark her progress. _This is going to take a while_.

* * *

_It's amazing_, Hibari thinks as she dodges a roundhouse kick from Gai, _how much I can improve when my life is on the line_. After two weeks of vigorous tree climbing, Ebisu had decided she'd mastered it and had moved her onto water walking (which she isn't scared of, but instead hates because she _hates_ getting wet). Foolishly, she'd asked him if she could practice the new skills and chakra control she'd gained in actual combat, thus improving her taijutsu at the same time. He'd obliged... And asked Gai to spar in his stead. Gai had happily obliged, which had led to her getting beaten into the ground in that spar. And the spar after that. And the spar after that. And the one after that... (Gai refuses to hold back too much even against a ten year old, it seems.)

The guys watching her had all wordlessly wondered – how the hell had she survived the war? And then Gai had stepped it up several levels, aiming a kick that would have snapped her neck if she hadn't barely dodged in time. It had snapped the tree behind her in half, and she'd stared at it in sickening fascination, feeling her imminent doom arriving. Gai, ignoring the shouts of alarm from his peers, had aimed another kick at her head... Only she'd no longer been there. Instead, she'd reappeared behind Gai, kunai in her hand despite the taijutsu-only clause of their spar and had driven it towards his exposed neck. Several things had happened then, but she only remembers Genma holding her back by her arm and Gai on the other side of the clearing, startled by her sudden burst of speed.

They'd learned several things about her that day.

One: while most people exhibit some kind of killer intent when actually going for the kill (either due to enjoying killing of having to round up the determination to do so), Hibari, like a trained Anbu operative, gives nothing away when she's going for a killshot.

Two: Because of number one, it's bad for her nerves to even fake trying to kill her, because her reflexive reaction is to try and kill you, or as least hurt you as much as she can. Clearly, she still holds some mental trauma from the war.

Three: She's pretty damn fast when she tries.

And four: She learns best under pressure.

It's why she's currently trying to avoid getting her skull caved in courtesy of Gai. It's been a month in total since the tree walking training, and Ebisu has decided that she's ready to try and fight on water. Hibari wonders if he went easy on Konohamaru's training, because he is brutal. He's thrown shuriken at her while she runs up a tree, sometimes even throwing it into her path, forcing her to change her footing or fall off. He's had her hop on one leg over hot water to teach her how to use chakra as a cushion to absorb the impact (she's pretty sure her skin was completely red when she finally went home). He's even confiscated her weapons and her spar with Gai, but that hadn't been too good for her nerves and he'd finally relented and allowed her one kunai, tucked away in her sleeve as a sort of wet blanket. The first night, her muscles had hurt so much she hadn't been able to sleep and Genma had to massage them for her as she whimpered into her pillow.

She tries to be grateful that the two of them (Genma only stands there watching and laughing, the asshole) are taking time every day out of their own down time to train her, but it's hard to remember why when she has to duck another punch that would shatter her bones, or a volley of shuriken from behind during kawamiri training. She settles for cursing them out in her head for now, and thanking them later. After all, it's undeniable that she's improved by leaps and bounds ever since they started this rigorous regime. Thankfully, he hasn't set her on physical conditioning with Gai yet. It's why her stamina is a bit lacking, but it's not that bad – one can't help but improve stamina when training in any shape or form with Gai.

Nevertheless, she curses under her breath and switches out with a nearby log to avoid a kick she wouldn't have been able to avoid physically. The log shatters upon meeting Gai's leg, eliciting a wince from her. Learning under pressure, indeed. So long as she doesn't shatter like that log, she'll come out of this for the better. She tries to convince herself of that as she parries a jab with her forearms, wincing.

* * *

Genma and Raidou leave for the war and Hibari tries not to whine or cry. They've managed to push their deployment back a week, but they can't push it back anymore. She hugs her brothers in all but blood tightly, giving them a kiss on the cheek each and threats of bodily harm if they don't come back alive and in one piece. They take her seriously – her training with Gai is starting to pay off. Genma ruffles her hair one last time as he locks up his door and hands her his and Raidou's spare keys. She clutches them like a lifeline as she watches their backs.

* * *

Much to Gai's delight, she throws herself into their training. Ebisu watches with sharp eyes, ready to stop her if she ever over-exerts herself, but she isn't that reckless. Over the course of the next three months, she trains desperately, trying to reach a decent level that will keep her alive on the battlefield. Gai senses her desperation and doesn't hold back. She hates and loves him for it, as she rubs her bruised and battered body down every night. Anko sets off another explosive in her neighbourhood. She visits Raidou's apartment weekly to water his plants, and dusts off both his and Genma's apartments once a month.

A month before she expects to be deployed, Ebisu and Gai are called to the frontlines. She's sad to see them leave as well. She's gotten to know them pretty well over the three months they've been friends. After Raidou and Genma left, Ebisu and Gai often kept her company. She's learned how Ebisu's father was a teacher that loved children, and how likewise Gai's father was his inspiration, and how both Genma and Ebisu respect Maito Dai enormously for the sacrifice he made for his beliefs and his son. She hugs them and thanks them for all their help.

She returns to an empty apartment just long enough to shower quickly and grab a change of clothes and lunch. She locks up and returns to the training ground she and Gai and Ebisu have been training at for the past three months and resumes training. There isn't time to be depressed. She still isn't as fast as she would like to be, and she only has a month left.

Genma and Raidou and Gai and Ebisu all leaving had made her realize something. While she's still fighting to live, it isn't the only reason anymore. Well, it still is, but before, she wanted to live simply for the sake of living.

Now, she wants to live, so that she can come back and see her friends again, and maybe make some new friends, and go for a walk with the matron, and play ninja with the kids at the orphanage.

She exhales as she snaps a fist out. She's really going to miss Konoha. But it's okay, because she'll be coming back.

She's going to make sure of it.

**A/N**

* * *

So, Hibari is mostly okay. She'll be sent back into the war, but she'll survive.

Whether she comes out in one piece or not is a different story : D

This chapter was mostly her recovering from the war and preparing for it again, along with getting back to her daily life in Konoha. We even see her making some actual friends! Let's get this out now: this won't be a Genma/oc.

Yes, she had a crush on him in the previous chapter, but it was the hot-guy-holding-me-and-helping-me-and-smiling-at-me-be-still-my-beating-heart kind of crush that wore off quickly. As she states, she sees him and Raidou as big brothers. Right now, she's still traumatized from the war, and wants to be coddled and protected like a little sister would be. Of course, it doesn't mean that as she gets over the trauma and gets older and goes through puberty their relationship won't change. It could very well end up turning into a physical relationship. At this point, anything is fair game. I haven't got much planned.

We also find out what was in the letter Inoichi sent. I think I made it pretty clear, but in case it wasn't: Inoichi isn't personally offering to adopt her; he isn't _that_ invested in her. Instead, he's offering to take her into the clan. However, he, like most other ninja, is willing to die for Konoha and for his clan, and it's so natural he doesn't even think about it. There are worse ways to die, from the viewpoint of a ninja. Hibari, who doesn't quite share his way of thinking, isn't so willing to die, or even bear the responsibility of being part of a clan. Yet.

So now she's coming off of a holy-crap-I'm-getting-stronger and I-have-actual-friends high. She's still got a month before the war, and then at least six months of war before she comes back. Anything could happen. _Anything_.

Also, personally, I think Kages are a lot more than what the manga portrays them. They're more than just the supposed strongest ninja in the village, or the figurehead, and although there's a lot of positive connotation with the position, it's actually a really dark job if you think about it. Every time a ninja dies, it's usually because the Hokage sent that ninja out on a mission. Every choice, whether he makes it directly or not, the consequences, both good and bad, falls on his shoulders, and he accepts it all. Remember how Tsunade accepted it when Naruto blamed her for Jiraiya's death? Furthermore, as far as the Hokage goes, he can rarely leave the village for missions or the such. He has to stay in the village as much as possible, because he's supposed to be their last hope. He's supposed to send everyone else out first, and when there's no other choice, only then can he step up and fight. And when a Kage has to fight, it'll usually be to the death.

Although it's too jumbled up to give exact references, I get a lot of my inspiration for the world of Naruto and how it works from two particular Naruto SI fanfictions: Vapors and Deja vue no Jutsu. These also happen to be among my top favourites, go check them out if you've got the time. A warning: they're both really long.

The next chapter _might_ not be set chronologically after this arc; as I mention in the summary, this will be a series of one-shots or arcs, all interconnected and revolving around Hibari. This is so I can write whatever scene whenever I want to write it. This also means chapter lengths will vary greatly, but I'll generally try to post around 10k worth of fanfic every time I update. I'll make a list of the chapters in chronological order on my profile sometime when there are more chapters. Maybe one day I'll write a chronological chapter-by-chapter story, but I want to explore the world of Naruto with Hibari first.

: D


	3. Tie Your Shoelaces

**Warnings:** Spoilers for recent chapters.

**Word Count:** 450 _This one's a ficlet_

**Summary:** A self-insert who's main priority is to survive, whose morality is as straight as a double rainbow, who is literally thrust into a war at the physical age of ten and has more mental issues than the hair ties that she keeps on losing. And she thought university was hard. SI OC, third shinobi war and onwards. A series of interconnected stories, not in chronological order.

Unbeta'd. Double update!

* * *

**Strange Days and Stranger Nights**

_Tie Your Shoe Laces_

_(In which Naruse Hibari has a family of sorts.)_

"Mom, Dad, I'm off!" Shiranui Tatara waves to her parents as she runs out the door, late once again for school, but she'll probably make it in time, knowing how fast she can be when she tries. The sixteen-year-old redhead is eerily similar to the Ino-Shika-Cho mashed together; she has the outgoing personality of a Yamanaka, the laziness of a Nara, and the appetite of an Akimichi.

Shiranui Hibari smiles fondly at the rapidly diminishing form of her daughter, and can't help but laugh when she trips.

"She forgot to tie her laces again?" Hibari turns around to face her husband, grinning.

"At least she didn't forget her lunch today." She stands up and kisses him on the cheek. "Well, I'm off as well. Inoichi will have my ass if I'm late again." Shiranui Genma snorts.

"And risk the wrath of Ino?" Hibari laughs. At thirteen years old and going through puberty, Inoichi's daughter is a complete hellion who loves her Hibari-nee-chan and has her father wrapped around her finger.

"You have a point. Still, he can do a lot worse to me without even talking to me," she pouts. "He'll just have this _look_ on his face that says something like, _I'm really disappointed in you but I don't want to make a big deal out of it but I'm upset and you'd better know it_." Genma chuckles as he drapes himself over his wife.

"He _is_ a psychologist. A damn good one, too. Remind me again why you decided to work for him?"

"Because of that _look_. I can't say no to that look, Genma, I just can't." She turns around to burrow into his chest to hide a grin. "Besides, he's been taking care of me since, well, forever."

Inoichi has been her babysitter for her whole life; she's even had a teenage crush on him, when she was going through puberty (that no one knows and no one will ever know about; she'll kill to keep that particular secret, even though she suspects Genma already knows). It helps that, because he kept bringing her to his workplace, she's very familiar with the place and its staff. It's thanks to him that she developed an interest in psychology early on and decided to study it in university.

Hibari leans up to give her husband another kiss, this time on the lips, and grabs her bag, ready for another day of work.

"We're invited to the Akimichi's for dinner tonight," she reminds him. Something nags at her in the back of her head, a slight sense of unease. She pushes it aside; whatever it is, with her family here, she'll get through it.

Outside her cocoon, the moon, framed by the black rings of the Rinnegan and decorated by the marks of the Sharingan, casts the Eternal Tsukiyomi over the world.

* * *

**A/N**

I couldn't resist.

So, who was completely confused at first? Who was expecting that? : D

I feel that Hibari will never completely stop pinning for her old life, so her dream in the eternal tsukiyomi would be a normal, happy life in the modern world. Tatara was mentioned in chapter 2; she's the redhead orphan that barreled into Hibari. It will be revealed in future chapters why she's in Hibari's dream : D I was stumped for who to cast as her husband. In the end I went with Genma, because it isn't a complete impossibility. He's someone she probably wouldn't mind marrying in the future. Remember, when this happens, she's about 28 years old and Genma is 35.

Also, I've added a timeline for this fic on my profile to keep track of when each chapter occurs.


	4. Nothing Left to Feed the Flies

**Warnings:** Substance abuse, self-harm, descriptions might get a bit gory (like chapter one gory), maybe some profanity. Depression, drug withdrawal. Here it is: MENTIONS OF SAME SEX ROMANCE. LIKE, ONE SENTENCE. BETWEEN TWO OCS. ONESIDED. There's your warning. Turn back or forever hold your peace.

**Word Count:** ~10k

**Summary:** A self-insert who's main priority is to survive, whose morality is as straight as a double rainbow, who is literally thrust into a war at the physical age of ten and has more mental issues than the hair ties that she keeps on losing. And she thought university was hard. SI OC, third shinobi war and onwards. A series of interconnected stories, not in chronological order.

Unbeta'd. Double update! Don't miss chapter 3! You can read this chapter without reading chapter 3 though.

* * *

**Strange Days and Stranger Nights**

_Nothing Left to Feed the Flies (War arc: 3/3)_

_(In which Naruse Hibari finally returns from war.)_

Hibari opens the door to her apartment for the first time in six months. There are thin films of dust here and there but overall it's quite clean. She makes a mental note to thank the matron, who'd agreed to come and dust her apartment out every month. It's nearing the end of the month, so the place is probably dustier than it would have been otherwise. She quickly strips off the dirty and bloody clothes she has on her, throwing them away, and hops into the shower for the first time in months (there'd been showers at the outposts they stopped at after a few months, thankfully). When the steaming water finally starts flowing over her body, she sighs in relief. Her first hot shower in six months; this is pure bliss.

She opens her eyes to a bloody shower stall, the red liquid dripping everywhere she can see, blood pouring from the showerhead onto her, into her mouth. She tries to scream but her throat won't make any noise. She chokes and coughs, her chest convulsing painfully, trying to expel the blood – _water, it's just water_. When she opens her eyes again, the blood is nowhere to be seen – except for tiny specks of blood on the floor of the stall, which are quickly washed away by the shower.

She closes her eyes again and leans back against the wall, placing a hand over her racing heart. She finishes her shower and goes to bed as quickly as she can, ignoring the hunger in her stomach – it's nothing new, and she's sure there's nothing in her fridge. She opens up a familiar bottle and shakes two small white pills onto her hand. She swallows them dry. After a while, her ragged breaths even out and she falls into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Hibari wakes up to someone banging on her door – _loudly_. Dimly, her mind registers Genma's voice. She should probably feel happier – she hasn't seen him in nine months – but right now, she hurts all over and is hungry and getting a headache from the racket he's making.

"_Later_," she growls, knowing he can hear her. There's a whine from the door.

"But Princess-chaaaaaan-"

"LATER." This sudden rage is uncharacteristic of her, but she doesn't register it. All she wants is for him to go away and leave her aching head be. There's silence for a beat on the other side of the door, then-

"Princess-chan, are you okay?" Genma's voice is softer now, concerned. Hibari doesn't answer, letting the sound of the sink running answer him.

* * *

Despite her hunger, Hibari can't eat more than small bun before she begins to feel nauseous. It isn't anything new. She knows she'll be hungry in a few hours and that she probably won't eat anything. Hunger has become a constant pain in her life, always there in the background. She only eats when she gets too tired. After several months of ration bars and soldier pills, she can't eat anything bigger than a bun anyways.

She changes out of her pajamas and gets ready for the day. She'd promised the matron to visit the moment she got back. She feels the puckered scar on her abdomen and for a moment she's reliving the moment, the kunai entering her, the intense _pain_ she'd felt that day, unlike anything she'd felt before. She clenches a fist and waits for the moment to pass, before grabbing a jacket and locking up.

The streets are more subdued, the war having intensified. Everyone can feel that something huge is coming up and there's a tension in the air. Hibari makes her way to the orphanage. Along the way, she hears snippets of gossip, one of them being that Orochimaru of the Sannin has taken on Mitarashi Anko as an apprentice. She spots the matron and the children playing outside in the backyard and hops onto the fence easily, then pauses for a moment to steady herself after a small bout of dizziness. The children squeal, gathering around the fence. She grins and jumps forward, landing a few meters away from them. A familiar red blur lunges for her and she instinctively dodges, just barely managing to restrain her leg before it can kick out. Tatara looks so bewildered for a moment that Hibari can't help but laugh, the rising anger within her subdued quickly. She pats Tatara on the head as the other children approach. It's hard to get really angry with Tatara; she always means well, and she reminds Hibari so much of the little brother she had once, a lifetime ago.

She hugs the matron, who fusses over her pale face and unhealthily skinny figure. She lets it drop after weaseling out a promise to eat more and go to a medic (both promises she probably won't keep). The children crowd around her, bragging about what they've accomplished over the last six months – they've begun a mini-war with the orphanage on the other side of Konoha, which consists of seeing which side can play more pranks on ninja than the other. There aren't official scorecards and a few mild scuffles have broken out over who's in the lead. Hibari congratulates them for actually being able to catch ninja, then chastises them for doing something that would cause more stress on already stressed-out ninja, and asks them to restrict their pranks to completely harmless ones and only target the other children. They pout but agree.

Hibari bears with the children's antics for about an hour before shooing them inside for lunch. She refuses the matron's offer for lunch as politely as she can and retreats back home. There, she sits down on her futon and meditates.

She's discovered a newfound appreciation for Shikamaru's goals in life; have a dull life, find a nice wife, have a few kids, retire, and die peacefully in his sleep before his wife. _If only_. She wonders if perhaps his initial behavior of constantly slacking off and napping was due to the fact that he realized that the moment he became a chuunin, he wouldn't have those luxuries anymore. The kid's always been smart.

She opens her eyes to a kumo-nin, thrusting a kunai into her abdomen, and barely manages to clamp down on a scream (she's gotten good at that). For a few delirious moments, she can feel blood pouring out of a nonexistent wound, over her hand and onto the futon.

(That night, she brings a kunai to her arm again, and then opens the familiar bottle of little white pills.)

* * *

Genma returns the next morning with Raidou. She's already out of the house by then.

She's strolling down a road she doesn't visit often. The sides are occupied with merchants and vendors selling everything from clothes to weapons. It's early enough that there aren't many people around and she doesn't feel _too_ suffocated yet. She pauses by a bakery to grab a bun and continues, no destination in mind. She tries to relax, but as the morning drifts away and more and more people arrive, she starts to feel more and more tense, her hand twitching towards her pouch.

Everything happens too quickly to process. She flinches at a sudden shout of "Hibari-nee!" and _fast_ movement in her peripherals and before she knows it, her hand is palming a kunai and she's behind Tatara in a flash and the kunai is approaching her back. She barely manages to stop in time. Tatara, who hadn't turned around in time to see the kunai, eagerly goes to hug her foster sister, and both she and Hibari are stunned when Hibari lashes out, catching the four year old in the shoulder and shoving her away hard enough to knock her down.

"_Don't do that!_" Hibari half-screams, half cries, her heart racing, wanting to slap and hug Tatara at the same time, maybe shake some sense into that red head of her, and then recoils because _what is she doing how could she ever think of hitting Tatara_ and people are starting to stare and then she's gone in a flash of leaves, having shunshin'ed away somewhere where she'll be safe. Where Tatara will be safe from her. She closes her eyes, feeling exhausted from that one simply shunshin. She places one hand over her heart, another over her throbbing head. Her heart's racing a mile a minute, trying to push its way out of her chest. Dully, she thinks it would be safer if it actually managed to do that. Behind her eyelids, the war rages on.

* * *

Hyuuga Niwaka is a typical member of the Hyuuga clan, and yet she isn't. She is quiet and graceful, tactful and calm. Well-mannered. Intelligent. Respectful. Perhaps just a bit stuck up, but who wouldn't be, as a member of Konoha's strongest clan? Or at least, that is how her acquaintances describe her. She's also a member of the branch clan. While most (all) branch clan members wrap their foreheads with bandages or their hitai-ate to cover up their curse seal, Niwaka displays it proudly. She feels no shame in it – it's just more proof of her tie to her clan. And she didn't ask for it to be put there.

She knows the seal is meant to subjugate them, to force them into obedience and punish them at the slightest sign of disrespect. But she is smart, and not all the clan elders are bastards that inflict pain on branch members when bored. She knows just how far she can push her boundaries, when determination turns into insubordination. At seventeen years, she has also learned how to lengthen those boundaries. She's learned how to play most of the clan elders like a koto, knows how to make them sing praises of her and make them believe she is an exemplar member of the branch family (lo and behold, most of the ones she can't fool are the ones that aren't bastards).

Little do they know, she is the one who poisoned the last elder that activated the curse seal of a child. She used a lethal dose of a medicine that slows the heartbeat down, and with the already frail heart of an old man, he passed away without fanfare late at night. Because the medicine does not affect the chakra circulatory system, the Byakugan could not detect it. There wasn't even an autopsy done – everyone knew that bastard's heart was bad, anyways. Even if she'd been questioned, she's lied so many times to their faces (practiced late at night as well, staring at her own face with the Byakugan in the mirror) that she's sure she would have gotten away with it.

Hyuuga Niwaka is a walking contradiction. She is graceful and well mannered, and can swear with the best of sailors. She loves her clan, and poisons the elders. She behaves perfectly, and yet she's done more than her share of dirty deeds. When asked, she will reply that yes, she loves Konoha and her clan. She just doesn't clarify that her love is rather selective within her clan. Or that the person that she loves the most in the world is not a Hyuuga, but a wild-eyed, larger-than-life Inuzuka youth by the name of Kyouko that spent half a year with her on the frontlines two years ago (Kyouko doesn't know this either). She leads a double life, and the Hyuugas, a clan renowned for their ability to read body language, can't tell a thing. In a way, she is the perfect kunoichi (and yet she is so, so flawed).

What the Hyuuga clan does know, though, is that she's picked up a puppy from the war, a wide-eyed, black-haired little waif of an orphan by the name of Naruse Hibari (okay, so she isn't exactly a waif, but she certainly acts like one). Big clans, while usually preferring to keep their bloodline as pure as possible, do occasionally have to marry from outside the clan. They prefer to use orphans for this purpose, as there is much less hassle – no in-laws to bring in or risk creating a fuss when told about the curse seal that is obligatory for any child born with the Byakugan, no reason to stay behind, and all the reason in the world to accept the gracious offer of such a prestigious clan. So far, Hibari has shown promise, surviving the war at such a young age. If she proves to be worthy in later years, once she has become of age, the clan might consider extending such a privilege to her.

Privately, Niwaka believes Hibari has more common sense than to accept. She also knows that the Hyuuga clan elders do not know that she has already received an offer of adoption from the Yamanaka clan (and thus more or less also by the Nara and Akimichi clan) and has refused. Clearly, prestige and the backing of an influential clan (or three) are not things Hibari is interested in.

Today, Niwaka sets off towards the district that Hibari told her she lived in, two boxed lunches in hand. It's past lunchtime already. Hibari, the twit that she is, probably hasn't eaten since early morning.

Niwaka remembers the first time she saw the child, wide-eyed and skinny, wearing a chuunin vest two sizes too big for her. She remembers thinking that the orphan wouldn't make it past a month. She remembers jumping in to unintentionally rescue the little girl from a particularly persistent and resilient Iwa-nin, and how the girl had followed her like a lost puppy afterwards. The months of back-to-back fighting that had ensued. Holding the girl at night as she cried silently for her brothers. Trusting her with the location of the blind spot of the Byakugan. Having the girl act as her eyes in that blind spot, and in return protecting the girl's back. Unfortunately, Niwaka had been reassigned in the last month and hadn't been able to feel safe that whole month without her little puppy guarding her blind spot. Hibari had probably felt the same way. The trust that they share is one that can only be forged by crawling out of hell together, side-to-side, back-to-back.

Niwaka reaches Hibari's apartment door and knocks. No one replies. She sighs and flashes her Byakugan quickly to confirm that no one is at home. Well, nothing to it. She reaches into her perfectly combed hair to carefully remove two pins and picks the lock. The door proves stubborn, but Niwaka has had plenty of practice, and her pins are top-quality, and the door eventually opens. She closes and locks the door behind her, sits down on a cushion, and waits. She has all day.

* * *

Hibari nearly has a heart attack when she opens her door and sees someone sitting in seiza on a cushion, back to her. The person turns her head 40 degrees and she recognizes whom it is, lowering the kunai she'd palmed sometime after spotting the person. Hyuuga Niwaka smiles and the smile is full of shuriken and the promise of physical pain if she doesn't sit down and eat the bento waiting for her on the low table _right now_. It's a look she's seen enough times, and she obeys – but not before running forwards to hug Niwaka tightly. Niwaka's terrifying smile lets up slightly and she pats the child's head gently.

She makes it about a third of the way through the bento before she starts to feel a bit sick, but Niwaka stares at her without blinking, with those pupil-less eyes, and Hibari chokes down another three bites before setting down the chopsticks. Niwaka sighs and gets up to transfer the contents of the bento into a hastily washed and dried bowl and stick it in her fridge. It's around 3 pm now, and Hibari has no doubt Niwaka will stick around until dinnertime to make sure she finishes the bento. She grimaces; her stomach is already protesting the sudden introduction of such a large quantity of food, even if it was all easy to digest – Niwaka probably knows her physical and mental state best right now.

Niwaka returns but doesn't sit down. Instead, her eyes narrow, and she activates her Byakugan. It's generally rude to do so in someone else's house without their permission (and forbidden for branch members on Hyuuga clan grounds apart from sparring), but around Hibari, Niwaka doesn't care. She scans the room slowly until she finds what she wants, her eyes narrowing even further. She deactivates her Byakugan and walks, feet not making any noise, to the bathroom, where she opens up a drawer, taking out a small bottle of pills. She opens the bottle and her grip tightens, the plastic protesting, when she sees the almost empty contents.

"You've been using them everyday." It isn't a question. Hibari pauses a beat, then nods.

"I can't sleep without them." Niwaka's delicate pink lips tighten into a fine line. Hibari was addicted to sleeping medication.

Niwaka remembers the first night after a bloody battle, when Hibari woke up screaming and wailing. She'd forced a pill down the child's throat to get her to sleep. The next tight, she'd pulled the child into her sleeping bag. It had usually been enough to stop the nightmares, and she'd only cracked out the pills on particularly bad nights. When she'd left that last month, she'd given Hibari enough pills to last half a year at the rate they had been going, with a warning to not overdose. It seemed Hibari hadn't listened.

Niwaka reseals the bottle and places it into her sleeve pocket, then stares down at Hibari's panicked expression. She takes the (stupid, stupid, stupid) girl by a forearm and pulls her up, heading towards the entrance. Hibari doesn't resist, and only tenses up when she recognizes the large double doors of Konoha's ninja hospital. Niwaka drags Hibari in, heading straight for the poisons and narcotics department (substance abuse is fairly common in the ninja ranks, especially the higher one goes). She uses her clan's backing to get Hibari an appointment more or less right away, not caring that she'll have to pay through the nose and lie through her teeth to avoid the elders breathing down her back about this sudden expense charged to the Hyuuga treasury.

The medic is downright shocked and more than a little horrified (justifiably so) that an eleven ("Almost twelve," Hibari grumbles, receiving a light whack on the back of the head courtesy of Niwaka's fan) year old child is addicted to sleeping medication. She immediately refers Hibari to another medic to get a full check-up _right away_, and then there are two medics that are frantically delving through past cases and reference books, while listing off all the things that are wrong with her. Severely underweight, malnourished, on the edge of dehydration, sleep medication addiction, and that's just the physical problems. Hibari wilts under each successive diagnosis. Niwaka inquires about possible mental problems and the medic that isn't partially buried under textbooks shakes her head.

"I don't even want to think about it. Get her a check-up with a Yamanaka." Hibari rejects this offer immediately. Niwaka pins her with another stare, but Hibari refuses to relent.

The medics seriously want to hospitalize her or place her in rehab, because even if it's not as bad as addiction to a narcotic, it's still an addiction, and she's only eleven years old, and she has a multitude of other problems that need to be supervised (the most urgent one being getting her to _eat_ again). Hibari refuses – she really doesn't like hospitals. Niwaka seems to seriously consider tying Hibari to a hospital bed and force-feeding her. In the end, she compromises and moves in with Hibari that very night to supervise her, along with a long list of hastily scribbled instructions on how to deal with the addiction and malnourishment and weight. It's too dangerous for Hibari's current condition to go cold turkey, and Niwaka doesn't trust her with the pills. She also refuses to sleep in the same futon as Hibari, because despite that being able to hold the nightmares at bay, she won't always be there. It's cold, hard logic, and Hibari loves and hates her for it.

Niwaka only gives her one pill that night, and she sleeps fitfully, turning in and out of nightmares. She doesn't scream, but it's a close thing (she might have felt a gentle hand on her forehead during a particularly bad dream, but she could be wrong).

* * *

Genma looks like he's two second away from breaking down Hibari's door and demanding answers. Raidou places a hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down. They're staked out in Genma's apartment, discussing what do to about the dilemma that is Naruse Hibari. Granted, it's only been three days since her return, but one would have to be blind and deaf to not see that she is going out of her way to avoid everyone. They haven't tried to chase her down yet, but it's a close thing with Genma.

Well, not _everyone_ – Ebisu has told them what he'd seen of Hibari's meeting with a little redhead that she seemed familiar with. It worries them – her reaction hadn't been healthy.

Genma spits his senbon out angrily, embedding it in the apartment wall across from him. Raidou winces at the blatant and purposeful vandalizing of property and sighs.

"Calm down," he said firmly. "We won't get anywhere like this." Genma glares at him and he raises his hands. "She looked fine physically, at least."

"She looked like a stick, Raidou. She's not eating properly." Raidou sighs. Despite Genma's insistence that Raidou is the "wife" in their mock relationship because of his cooking skills, Genma has a mother hen streak that can rival an Akimichi's when it comes to someone he's close to not eating properly. Raidou remembers once when Gai trained so hard he forgot to eat for three days and then passed out in the middle of a road (this had been a few days after his father had died). Genma had taken him home, tied him down with a mile of thick rope, and force-fed him for three days.

"She's got that Hyuuga girl with her."

"Yes, because Hyuugas are the epitome of open and caring. Did you know, I discussed my feelings with Hiashi last week? He was particularly receptive. Gave me the fuzzies and all that. I think I might be in love." Raidou winces – Genma has a point. Still, it's better than nothing. The two of them had fought alongside the Ino-Shika-cho trio and had heard a few startling things about Hibari that they'd never known; such as her cutting habit and her mental state before her downtime. One of the most baffling things, though... _Why would she refuse an adoption offer_? Raidou sighs again and shakes his head. They can always ask her later – first of all, they have to find a way to get her to stop avoiding them like the plague. An idea starts to form, one that might be good, but might also be disastrous.

"Hey Genma, where's Gai?"

* * *

Niwaka is already up when Hibari wakes up. She's apparently had time to run to the market, buy some fresh fish, rice and vegetables, and cook a complete breakfast. Hibari washes up drowsily and plops down to force the food into her mouth. It's delicious, but past the fifth bite or so she has to force herself to finish it. It's less than the bento from yesterday, but it's enough to make her feel as though there's a rock in her stomach. Or a boulder; that would probably be a more accurate comparison. The thought that she'll have to eat more for lunch is enough to make her slightly nauseous. Niwaka must notice her face going a tad green but ignores it and bustles her out the door for a walk. The medics were rather specific; no chakra exercises if they can be avoided, lots of nutritious food, and slowly cut back on the sleep pills. Wake up early, do plenty during the day to tire Hibari out so that she can try to get a good night's sleep.

Secretly, Niwaka is worried about the fact that Hibari is to be deployed again in four months. If Niwaka isn't deployed to the same place, it will be too easy for Hibari to get the pills from someone else and relapse. She doesn't think that an adult would give sleep pills to a child, but Hibari can be surprisingly convincing when she puts her mind to it. And when she pulls the pitiful underfed orphan eyes. Even if no one else is noticing, Niwaka can see that Hibari is falling apart at the seams. Niwaka's presence is holding together, letting her revert to the protected little sister role, but Niwaka won't be there forever. She's all fragile glass inside that's been shattered, only a thin layer keeping all the pieces inside, and they're slicing her apart from the inside. She fears the day that they slice her open.

But those are thoughts for another day. She leads Hibari to the market. She spots a good bakery and tells Hibari to stay put for a moment. Hibari obeys, but the moment Niwaka is no longer at her side the crowd is too close, too suffocating, and she feels too exposed, the area isn't safe enough. She tries her best, but after five agonizing minutes she can't take it anymore and flees the area by the rooftops.

She stops at an emptier street, panting lightly. She's completely unprepared for the mini green tornado that shows up right in front of her, dodges her stab attempt, gives her a thumbs-up and a smile full of sparkling white teeth, then sweeps _her_ up and proceeds to dump her on a training ground half a second later. She barely manages to dodge a roundhouse kick, holding her heaving stomach. Her body is moving before her mind, registering a threat and working out how to eliminate it, but- how does one stop a tornado?

* * *

Niwaka returns to find Hibari gone. She sees red and flashes her Byakugan, squeezing the custard out of the taiyaki in her hands.

* * *

Gai is everywhere and no where at once, lashing out, striking her _hard_ a few times when she doesn't manage to deflect or dodge. Her brain finally catches up, but she doesn't have time to wonder why Gai is attacking her, because it takes all of her focus to just keep track of where he is. No matter how fast she is, he's faster, always there before her, bigger and better and faster and stronger and she feels a deep, burning terror in her gut as she pushes herself to go faster.

What follows is the worst spar she's had with Gai to date (although he takes care to avoid hitting her face or putting too much force into his hits; he's probably also noticed how thin she is). She's malnourished, too thin, has no energy and no motivation. She tires quickly and in no time is getting batted around like a cat toying with a mouse. Finally, her legs give out and she falls to her knees in the middle of the training ground, heart in her throat, terror almost at an all-time high, staring at Gai's approaching leg that's sure to knock her out for a week. It stops right in front of her face, and she's not sure why, but her mind is in the war again and she takes each opening possible, diving around the leg and to the side, forcing her screaming legs up. Gai is right there, only he's not attacking her anymore, he's holding his arms out to catch her. But she no longer sees Gai; she sees an enemy, and drives a kunai towards his throat with surprising speed and a feral scream. Only Gai is faster, always faster, and he catches both of her hands and holds them away. She screams again, in anger and in fear, tears dripping down her cheeks, twisting futilely.

"LET ME GO! NO! _NO_!" He doesn't let go. "NO, NO, NO! I DON'T WANT TO FIGHT ANYMORE! I DON'T WANT TO! NIWAKA! NIWAKA-NEE! RAIDOU-NII! _GENMA_!" She keeps on shrieking and screaming and crying, letting out all the terror that she'd felt during the war, her despair and the hopelessness she'd felt after Niwaka had left. She drops her kunai and her limbs go slack. Only them goes Gai wrap her small, thin body into a hug, and she wails and burrows deeper into his stomach (and when had he gotten so tall, had he gone through _puberty_? _Not. Fair._).

She doesn't know how long they stay like this, but Gai stays in place until her cries subside and he feels her wriggle awkwardly. He sets them both on the grassy ground of the training area and pulls out a handkerchief out of somewhere (probably the same place he gets his sunset and tidal backdrops, Hibari thinks somewhere in the back of her mind), gently wiping her tear-stained and probably snotty face.

"Do you feel a bit better now?" He looks a bit ashamed, Hibari realizes upon closer inspection. "I did not mean to cause you such distress, but your friends felt something had to be done." He even _fidgets_. Hibari is still staring at him. Misreading her stare as something negative, he hurries to explain. "Whatever happened to you, whatever was done to you, and whatever you had to do – we do not care. You are our friend, and-" he smiles lopsidedly "- I suspect, to Genma and Raidou, you are more than just a friend – you are family." He gently pats her head. "We are glad that you are here. There is nothing more we would want from you. And we are so, so sorry we could not be there fore you."

Hibari feels the tears coming back, and she turns her head away, wiping at her eyes with a sleeve. She nods, not trusting her voice. She realizes how much everyone must have worried about her and feels horrible. But before she can go to them, there's something she has to do. She's about to say so when she feels a spike of familiar murderous intent behind her and winces.

"_My_, _my_, Hibari-chan. You're certainly _energetic_ today." Hyuuga Niwaka stands there in her beautiful green yukata, Byakugan active and arms crossed, one hand holding some crushed taiyaki, her face promising pain if Hibari says the wrong thing.

"N-Niwaka-nee..." Hibari unintentionally inches closer to Gai. Niwaka's eyes sharpen and flash. Hibari's self-preservation instincts kick in. "Gai-senpai made me spar with him!"

Niwaka smiles.

"Is. That. _So_."

Gai, is oblivious to the danger Niwaka presents but is a good distraction nonetheless. He smiles his hundred-watt smile and gives Niwaka a thumbs up, standing up.

"It is an honour to meet Hibari's sister!"

Hibari tries to escape while Niwaka's attention is mostly on Gai. She doesn't get very far.

She comes very close the death that day, choking on the custard taiyaki Niwaka shoves down her throat.

* * *

Hibari stands outside the orphanage, fidgeting. She takes a deep breath, steels herself, and knocks on the door. One of the kids answers cheerfully, recognizing her.

"Hi, Hibari-onee-chan!" She smiles hesitantly and pats his head.

"Hi, Yuuta-kun. Is... Is Tatara-chan there?"

"Uh-huh! I'll get 'er for ya!" The boy runs off. "TATARAAAA!"

Tatara's instant reply of "_Whaaaaaaat?!_" makes Hibari grin. A few seconds later Tatara is running down the stairs, and in the blink of an eye the red burr attaches herself to Hibari's waist, blubbering.

"I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryPleasedon'tgooooooo" Hibari is momentarily stunned, and then feels like an absolute piece of crap she leans down to hug Tatara properly and tightly, shushing her.

"Oh sweetie, no, _I'm_ sorry." She does her best to explain her actions to a surprised Tatara. "I just got back from war again. I'm still seeing bad guys everywhere I go. When someone runs at me, I think it's a bad guy right away and I try to hurt them." The rest of the orphans listen on quietly. "So just don't sneak up on me or run at me, or if you do make sure I can see who you are first, okay? I'm sorry for pushing you and for running away." She hugs the little redhead, squeezing slightly. Tatara, bless her great big heart, forgives Hibari in the time it takes to realize that her big sister is trying to apologize, and then is tugging her along to go see the drawing she's made.

Hibari has to hold back tears again when she sees the messy, wonderful portrait of herself and Tatara, holding hands under a bright blue Konoha sky.

* * *

Genma is lazing around in his apartment that afternoon, senbon in mouth, wearing a simple black shirt and sweatpants. He's pleasantly surprised when Hibari finally works up the courage to knock on his door and opens it as fast as he can, coming face-to-face with a startled Hibari, fist raised in the middle of her third knock. The fist almost hits his chest and he catches it just in time. Hibari flinches and tugs, and Genma lets go. They stand awkwardly like that for a few seconds, as Hibari fidgets and Genma examines her from head to toe before coming to the conclusion that he was right; she's way too thin. He grabs her hand and pulls her inside, almost closing the door on a peeved Hyuuga who steps inside just in time, uninvited. He drags her to the kitchen, giving her just enough time to leave her shoes by the door; the Hyuuga follows right behind them. He ignores the Hyuuga as he pushes Hibari into a chair and opens his kitchen. He pulls out a plate of tuna sushi and sets it down in front of her.

"Eat," he orders, taking the plastic covering off. Hibari stares, uncomprehending, until a fan whacks her on the head, eliciting a whine.

"Eat," the Hyuuga echoes, pinning her with a stern look. Only when Hibari picks up a piece and places it in her mouth does lifts her gaze to Genma, her expression changing to one of... Approval? Her pale pink lips twitch in a small smile. "I'll be back tonight." With a swish of her yukata, she's out the door, leaving Genma and Hibari alone.

"..."

Hibari chews and swallows awkwardly, avoiding Genma's eyes.

"So, who's the Hyuuga and why's she following you around?" he asks.

"... Niwaka-nee. We fought together in the war." Genma tries not to start at the quiet, high-pitched voice that he hasn't heard in nine months. He runs a hand through his hair – no hitai-ate wrapped around it at the moment – and takes the senbon out of his mouth, placing it on the table. He glances at Hibari when she doesn't move to take another piece of sushi and is about to urge her to do so when she suddenly stands up and barrels into him, hugging him tightly. Through his thin shirt, he can feel her tears. She sniffs and tightens her hug. "... I missed you 'nd Raidou-nii-chan." Hearing that, Genma sighs and wraps his arms around the little girl, hugging her tightly.

"Yeah, we missed you too."

* * *

Raidou stares at Hibari's thin frame and somehow manages to make her feel even guiltier than she already is. Genma had insisted on calling him over, and she'd had her obligatory second sob/hugfest. Then he'd promptly begun grilling her on her health. She'd lied through her teeth about everything that she could get away with, but hadn't bothered to even try lying about her weight.

Raidou picks up a wrist and wraps his thumb and forefinger around it with plenty of room to spare. His eyebrows pinch in concern. He places his hands on her sides and can almost feel the ribs. He spins her around to see her shoulder blades jutting out of her back. He spins her around again and pins her with an intense look.

"For the next _month_," he stresses, "you'll eat dinner with either me or Genma. Or even both of us. _Promise_ me." She does. "If you try to run, I'll find out, and I will find you and tie you down. Understand?" He eerily resembles Niwaka-nee. She nods frantically and he backs up, pleased. "So, who's the Hyuuga that's camped out at your apartment?"

"Niwaka-nee-chan. We fought together in the war," she explains, smiling. "She helped me a lot. She's really strong – she's a jounin." This causes some raised eyebrows (that yukata-wearing girl that could pass perfectly for a civilian is a jounin?) but also some relief, that a jounin is looking out for her.

"So you were with her the whole time?" Raidou asks. Hibari shakes her head and takes another piece of sushi; it's very good sushi, and Raidou keeps on glaring at her when she's not eating.

"She had to go in the last month. They needed a Byakugan somewhere else." Aaah. Well, it would have been too good to be true, for a jounin to be following her around the whole time.

"So why's she camping out in your apartment?" Genma asks. "Family problems?"

"Oh, no... She's, um..." Hibari goes red, fidgeting. "She's making sure I eat enough," she mumbles. Raidou blinks at that and Genma laughs, remembering how quickly Hibari had eaten at the Hyuuga's prompting.

Hibari is just thankful that they don't dig anymore and more onto everyday topics. She doesn't mention her sleeping medication addiction to them.

She stands up to get a glass of water and stretches. Genma, who's in the middle of a laugh from something Raidou said, suddenly chokes and spits his senbon out. He lunges forward, startling Hibari, and grabs her arm, pulling her closer. It takes all of her self-control not to reach for a kunai. She squawks when he suddenly pulls her shirt up. He only pulls it up to her upper rib, leaving her decent, but it's more than enough to expose a patchy network of scars. The largest and ugliest one is a medium-sized puckered scar over her abdomen. The shape is unmistakable that of a kunai stab wound. Raidou has gone quiet as well. Genma gently traces the scar with a hand; it's new, probably only been there for a few months. Both men slowly bring their eyes away from her abdomen to her face, searching for answers. She looks away and slowly twists her arm out of Genma's grip, sitting down again. Raidou finally breaks the silence.

"Hibari-chan, what happened?" She couldn't answer if she wanted to; the words are trapped in her throat, choking her when she tries to force them out.

"She was stabbed," a new voice answers Raidou dryly. Suddenly Niwaka is standing beside Hibari, who stands up and buries her face into her foster sister's chest. The jounin Hyuuga simply arches an eyebrow when the two men instinctively reach for weapons.

"And what were you doing at that time, Big Sister-chan?" Genma asks, voice deceptively easygoing. But there's a senbon in his mouth again, and Hibari knows how fast he can spit it and how much force he can put behind it.

"Stopping three other Kumo-nin from doing the same thing," Niwaka replies in the same tone. "Then after that I was trying to stop her from bleeding out. More than you've probably done," she adds, almost viciously. Hibari tugs on her sleeve and she stops, not saying whatever she was going to say. "Let's go, Hibari-chan." She bustles Hibari towards the door. Genma moves to stop them but Raidou holds him back. Niwaka nods approvingly, and then makes a few small signs with her free hand out of Hibari's line of sight. _Back in six hours_. Raidou nods, and then she's out of the apartment with Hibari and the door closes with a click. Genma slowly forces his body to relax and sets his senbon down again, sighing.

"That went well."

_Whack_.

"Ow! What? It did!"

* * *

Hyuuga Niwaka arrives right on time, just a bit before 11pm, a few minutes after Hibari falls into a fitful sleep. This time she's considerate enough to knock politely on the door and wait for Genma's invitation before stepping inside, moving with all the grace of a dancer. She sits down at their table and accepts the tea they offer her but doesn't drink it – probably out of habit. She sits slightly sideways, not quite facing them as she beings to talk. She gets to the point right away.

"Three months ago, Hibari was stabbed in the abdomen. It nicked her intestines. She spent a week to recover and another under observation to ensure that there was no blood infection, and then returned to the battlefield. I believe after I left, there was a case where she was stabbed by two katanas at once." Raidou is quiet, and Genma has an uncharacteristically serious expression, his senbon lying forgotten on the table. Niwaka continues and her next words douse the two men in cold water. "She's also addicted to sleeping medication and exhibits symptoms of self-harm and psychological trauma." _No shit_, Genma thinks as he hears the words _psychological trauma_. Too many people don't take it seriously, and at least several ninja commit suicide or display suicidal tendencies because of it, especially during the war. Raidou is probably thinking the same thing as he clenches a fist. Both of them are glad that this Hyuuga woman is sticking with Hibari, even if they don't completely trust her just yet (that's a given with their occupation). "I'm currently helping her go through rehabilitation and withdrawal. She refuses to be hospitalized." She finally turns her head to face them, staring at them with her completely white eyes. "I'd like you to stay away from her for now." Genma and Raidou freeze. For the longest time, no one talks.

"Why?" Genma breaks the silence, his voice low and serious. Raidou recognizes that voice – Genma is just about ready to throttle the Hyuuga woman.

"She's ashamed," Niwaka explains calmly. "She doesn't want you to know or see her going through this. She'd rather remain an ordinary little girl. Your innocent little sister." Which is an absurd though, because Hibari has never been ordinary or innocent, ever since coming back from war the first time. Genma persists.

"We all know she's far from innocent. We don't care." Niwaka's stare is unwavering and unrelenting.

"But she does." She folds her hands across her lap neatly. "And you may know, but you have not seen. It is not the same thing." The tension in the room rises as Niwaka and Genma stare each other down. But finally, thinking of Hibari, Genma relents. Niwaka closes her eyes and stands up. "Thank you for your understanding. It will help with her recovery greatly, if she does not have you two to worry about. I will explain your absence to her." She inclines her head shallowly – she ranks above them, after all – and sees herself out. The door clicks shut. Inside the apartment, Genma clenches his fist and Raidou stares out the window worriedly.

* * *

The matron somehow finds out about her nickname. _Fushi no Youkou_. The undead demon child. It isn't surprising that the matron instantly things of her – she doesn't know any other children in the war. Well, save for Namizake's infamous trio, but the undead demon child was alone and on the frontlines, and Namikaze's trio always takes missions together and hasn't been assigned to the frontlines for direct combat yet, even if they've all made chuunin.

The matron quietly asks if it's true – if she single handedly took on a platoon of Iwa-nin and slaughtered them, beheaded them and then hacked them to pieces and finally stood up, drenched in their blood, eyes completely red and two katana sticking out of her, holding a single kunai dyed red with blood. Blood everywhere, staining her skin and her clothes and her eyes.

It awakens long suppressed memories, that first battle, her first one in five months without Niwaka at her side, and she'd found herself surrounded by five Iwa-nin and panicked and gone slightly insane. All she can remember is thinking that she was going to die, and then hacking away at a bloody and long dead corpse, up to her elbows in blood. It probably hadn't helped her reputation that she'd screamed and screamed and screamed after until both the enemy and the ally had found her. The ally had been extremely wary, but the enemy, seeing the carnage, had retreated.

She'd won them a battle, but after that they'd all been on edge around her. She sees the same look in the matron's eyes, and it really, really hurts. She thought she'd been special, but has she taken the matron's fussing as kindness when really it was pity, or obligation, since none of the other orphans had returned? Had the matron not really realized what went on in a war until now? And, the most painful thought of all – does the matron no longer want her to come visit the children, scared that she might hurt them? The thought is a kunai to a tender wound, twisting and turning in her flesh. She hides her pain as she quietly excuses herself and waves goodbye – probably for the last time – to a confused Tatara, who waves and then asks the sad-looking matron why Hibari-nee-chan is leaving so soon and when her big sister will come back.

She's perfectly sane.

Isn't she?

(That night, Niwaka refuses to give her a pill and she wakes up screaming as she drowns in nonexistent blood.)

* * *

When a few days pass and Hibari doesn't catch sight of Genma or Raidou in either of their homes, despite having promised to have dinner with them, she gets worried and depressed. Niwaka tries to cheer her up.

"They probably had to leave for an emergency mission." Hibari only becomes even more worried, as an emergency mission in the middle of war must be extremely dangerous. "It's useless to worry about them," Niwaka insists firmly as she sticks some rice into Hibari's mouth, who sputters, chews and swallows.

A few days later, Niwaka finds Gai and Ebisu, the latter whom she hugs and greets warmly for the first time in over nine months. They have no idea where Genma and Raidou have gone either.

After the third week, she stops waiting.

* * *

Hibari's dreams have become less restless as of late, plenty of nutrition and rest helping with her addiction. Her hallucinations have stopped as well. Overall, it's not as bad as it could have been – she was only addicted for about two weeks. Niwaka estimates that it will take another two to three months to completely break her addiction, and stresses to her that she _cannot_ relapse when she returns to the war again in less than three months.

The past month has been particularly painful as Hibari fought through the withdrawal. But with Niwaka at her side, she's managed to push through. She shoves the humiliating memories away and tries to forget about them.

* * *

Genma returns from wherever he'd gone and avoids her, simply saying a "Hi" when they bump into each other on the way out and then leaving. Raidou does the same thing. The apparent rejection hurts more than the kunai to her abdomen did.

She throws herself into training to distract herself. She's gotten out of shape in the few weeks that Niwaka forbid training, and she's finally been given the okay again after putting on some more weight. Niwaka convinces her to move to a Hyuuga clan owned house, close to the outskirts of the clan compound, with her. It's more isolated and peaceful, and fully equipped, so Hibari doesn't need to bring much, just some clothes. She helps Hibari out with her taijutsu – there's still no time to learn any ninjutsu or genjutsu. Together they refine her taijutsu some more, even incorporating some of the Jyuuken style. Hibari is built for it; flexible, fast on her feet, fluid, with very good reflexes. She's only missing the Byakugan and the ability to expel chakra from all her tenketsu.

"You remind me of my little sister," Niwaka smiles. "She was also so eager to learn."

"I bet she's a lot better than me," Hibari laughs. Niwaka's smile turns a bit strained.

"She might have been. She might not have. We'll never know. She's dead."

* * *

When Hibari lands a hit on Niwaka for the first time, even though Niwaka had been going easy on her, the jounin sweeps her up into an ungraceful bear hug and Hibari breaks out into a great big silly smile.

* * *

Hibari notices just how dependent she's become on Niwaka's presence when the jounin returns to her clan compound for a meeting about the war. The seven hours that pass without the Hyuuga by her side are nerve-wracking and tense. When Niwaka finally returns, Hibari flings herself into the jounin's side. Niwaka smiles fondly and pats her hair.

* * *

It's amazing how quickly everything can fall apart, Hibari muses.

* * *

_Four hours ago_

"Hibari?" The familiar voice makes her freeze, and she turns around slowly to see a face she has not seen more than a few times in the past two months and three weeks (she's been counting, however unwillingly), a face so familiar it hurts. Genma stands there with a slightly nervous, slightly hopeful expression on his face, senbon in his mouth. "Are... Are you okay now?" For a brief moment she thinks they are talking about her sleeping medication addiction, but then dismisses the thought; she's never told them about it, and they haven't talked to her for two months and three weeks. Her expression closes off and she stares at him coldly. But then his next words wipe the expression right off her face. "I haven't heard from Niwaka in a while so I got worried."

She nearly drops the groceries in her arms. Everything around her fades into the background as she tries to process what he's just said. _Niwaka? Niwaka-nee was in touch with him?_

_No._

_It can't be._

_She never said anything._

She must have said some of her thoughts out loud, because Genma's expression turns dark.

"What did she tell you about why Raidou and I have been staying away?"

"Nothing," she hears herself reply distantly. She's partially hurt that they were indeed avoiding her, and partially terrified for the real reason why. Genma scowls sharply, senbon clinking. It's a familiar sound that resonates through her heart and makes it ache, but it's nothing compared to the pain that comes with Genma's next words.

"She told me and Raidou to stay away, because you didn't want us to find out about your addiction, and because it would help with your recovery," he says slowly. "She met up with us once a week to tell us how you were doing. She stopped two weeks ago though, and we couldn't find you at your apartment either."

Two weeks ago.

That would be when Niwaka had convinced her to move to the Hyuuga-owned house.

Genma speaks again, apparently having come to a conclusion he does not like, by the look on his face.

"By any chance, was Niwaka the one who gave you the sleep medication?"

Her throat closes off.

_No_.

She has to find the truth.

* * *

_Two hours ago_

Niwaka's patience runs out when Hibari does not show up for two hours and she finally tracks her to her old apartment. Hibari had asked Genma to stay away for another four hours – she needs to ask Niwaka by herself, alone.

Niwaka instantly realizes something is wrong when she sees Hibari.

"You lied to me," Hibari says simply. Niwaka raises an eyebrow.

"About what?"

"About Genma and Raidou. You told them to stay away from me. You tried to make us mad with each other, to break apart our relationship. Tried to make _me_ break my relationship with them." And it had almost worked. "Why?" There's silence. "You did so much for me. You took care of me. You helped me get over my addiction. You helped me so much." A pause. "Or did you?" There's a longer silence, and then Niwaka speaks, slowly and clearly.

"I love you as I would my own sister."

But that doesn't answer anything. Hibari shakes her head.

"I'm not," she says, carefully and clearly, "your little sister." More silence. Unbearable, tense silence. "Why did you do it?" Niwaka finally answers, and it's an answer, but not one that Hibari ever wanted to hear.

"You can't trust them. They won't be there for you. I'll always be there for you." She holds out a hand. "The Hyuuga clan is considering adopting you. Join us. Join _me_. I'll keep you safe. Trust me." It's the wrong thing to say (Hibari wonders if Niwaka's speaking to her, or to the shadow of a dead sister she probably sees in her). Slowly, Hibari shakes her head.

"You're the one I can't trust anymore." Niwaka's hand falls. Her face becomes impassive, closed off. "Niwaka-nee." Hibari raises glassy black eyes. "Please leave." The seconds that pass feel like an eternity, and then Niwaka slowly turns around and walks out without a sound. She leaves the door open behind her.

* * *

Hibari cries bitterly into Genma's shirt. Raidou is there too, eyes dark with anger and guilt at having been deceived and unintentionally causing the inconsolable child in Genma's arms more pain. Genma simply closes his eyes and holds onto Hibari as much as she's holding onto him.

The only positive thing that's come out of this is that drugs and kunai to the arm reminds her too much of Niwaka, of her gentle hand on her forehead when she had nightmares, of her gently wrapping up a new cut with a dismayed expression on her face. It hurts so much that she can't bring herself to cut anymore, no matter how much she wants to, wants to drain out her emotions with her blood until she can't feel anything anymore.

* * *

The next day, someone drops off everything Hibari had brought to the Hyuuga-owned house in front of her door.

* * *

There's less than a month left until Hibari will be deployed again. She throws herself into her training, now with Gai, and absently wonders if she'll survive it this time. She knows for sure that won't be able to bring herself to trust anyone else on the battlefield anymore. Niwaka will forever remain the only one that she trusted to cover her back. She once thought she could trust Niwaka with her very soul. Now, the number of people that she can trust sits at a pathetic four.

* * *

"I heard about your nickname," Ebisu says casually. They're sitting in the usual dango shop with Gai and Genma. Kurenai and Asuma are there too, but Hibari is in no mood to talk, much less make new friends, and largely ignores them after the initial introductions and pleasantries. Hibari glances up at Ebisu with dull eyes. He continues. "I can imagine what you must have done. It must not have been pleasant. You must hate yourself for it." Genma and Gai shoot him warning glances but he ignores them. "I'm glad you did it," he says, and that makes Hibari's eyes clear momentarily with shock. Genma sees where this is going and nods.

"You would have died if you hadn't done so, right?" Hibari nods mutely. "Then we're all glad you did so." He pauses, thinking over his next words. "We want you back, alive and in one piece as well. We're your friends, and we won't judge you for any actions you take to do so." _Barring betrayal, because then we won't be your friends anymore_. She knows this as well as they do. It's encouragement and a warning all in one. She nods at Ebisu, acknowledging his words. Genma reaches over to place a supporting hand on her shoulder. She smiles gratefully at him and comes to a decision. _One more time_, she thinks. _Just once more_. If she survives, she will ask the Yamanaka clan to adopt her despite her initial rejection and get her out of this war. She'll beg if she has to, pride be damned, because she won't be able to survive for much longer in it.

_Kami, let me survive just one more time_.

* * *

_Eight months later_

The war is finally over.

Hibari hasn't seen the walls of Konoha for seven months, one month longer than expected. Kannabi Bridge had occurred right before she'd been due to return. She gleams from scraps of gossip that it more or less went as expected; with Uchiha Obito pronounced KIA and Hatake Kakashi brandishing a Sharingan in his left eye socket. Namikaze Minato almost singlehandedly tramples over Iwa. The last month of the war had almost everyone participating in blitz attacks to overwhelm Kumo now that it had lost its main ally. Hibari had gotten to see Namikaze Minato in action; it had been nothing short of terrifying and awesome.

One long month later, the war is finally over. Hibari steps into her dusty apartment and breathes in the long-forgotten and yet still familiar scent of home. She showers quickly, and then knocks on Genma's door. He opens it, grinning, and she hugs him tightly and cries into his shirt for the umpteenth time.

* * *

She visits the Hyuuga compound. She wants more answers, answers she hadn't been brave enough to ask the questions to when the war had loomed overhead. When she requests to see Hyuuga Niwaka, she's led to a rather formal looking room and told to wait. She sits patiently and doesn't touch anything.

She's more than a little bit shocked when Hyuuga Hiashi opens the screen door and walks in. He takes a seat in front of her and she bows hastily. It might just be her imagination, but his eyes seem to soften a bit when they land on her.

His next words are anything but soft, and she imagines this is what being electrocuted, drowning in freezing water, and stabbed in the chest all at once feels like.

"Hyuuga Niwaka was discovered to be guilty of fatally poisoning a clan elder. She was executed three months ago."

* * *

Hibari more or less moves in with Genma. He receives a promotion to tokujou (special jounin) and begins training with Raidou and a third tokujou named Tatami Iwashi. Within a month, they will form the Hokage guard platoon for the Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato, and train under him to learn the Hiraishin, the coveted Flying Thunder God.

To Hibari, all this means is that he will be mostly staying in the village. That's good, because there are still some nights when she wakes up screaming or crying and has to crawl into Genma's futon. She doesn't know whether to be horrified or relieved at the fact that the past seven months hadn't been as bad as her first four months in the war, because she's gotten used to it. To the brutality, the violence. Gotten used to killing (she's gotten quite good at it too, with the swift taijutsu that Niwaka taught her ages ago, the only thing she's kept from her, and a little bit of top-grade ninja wire swiped from a warm corpse). She conveniently forgets her personal promise to beg the Yamanaka clan for adoption. The war is over. She doesn't need their protection anymore.

* * *

She's given a month of downtime before she's expected to resume regular missions again. She spends most of it lazing around, doing nothing. In her third week, she visits the memorial stone and locates four Setsunas. She wonders which one is her Satsuki-Setsuna.

She doesn't find Itou's name and wonders if the other orphans were forgotten as well.

She finds a spare blank piece of wood lying around and brings it home. She digs deep into her memory, and carves each of the orphan's names onto the wood.

_Manami. Izumi. Kenshin. Sayoko. Futaba._

_Itou._

Then she adds one more name, one that will never be on the memorial Stone.

_Niwaka_

* * *

"I would like to be apprenticed to a kenjutsu master," Hibari says to the Hokage. Minato takes in her diminutive figure (early starvation has pushed back her puberty and she looks younger than she actually is) and the determined set of her eyes. In her hands, she clutches the katana from the Kumo-nin (it feels like all that happened an eternity ago). He clasps his hands in front of him.

"Why should you be?" He doesn't mean to come off as overly challenging or the such. It's a valid question; kenjutsu masters are short in supply and high in demand. She doesn't answer his question.

"Give me a chance," she says instead. _Let me prove myself. I've proven myself in the war. Was forced to. Let me prove myself again_.

There's less than nine months before the Kyuubi attack, if the rumours about one Uzumaki Kushina's pregnancy are to be believed. There's no time to waste. She doesn't want anyone to die anymore. She doubts she can save Minato or Kushina, but when the time comes, she refuses to be useless.

She tightens her hold on the katana in her hands and raises her eyes challengingly to meet the Hokage's.

* * *

Namikaze Minato sees the will of fire burning in the child's eyes, and is glad the war has not broken her beyond repair.

* * *

**A/N**

So I lied, the War arc is now concluded with three chapters. :D

It's surprisingly hard to remember that Hibari is physically, in fact, all of eleven (almost twelve) years old in this chapter. Any ordinary eleven year old would probably have cracked. And by now she should be used to acting her "age," even if she does slip up occasionally. Meh. It's really confusing trying to accurately write about a twenty year old in an eleven year old's body.

If you haven't noticed by now, Hibari is actually a rather clingy and needy person. She likes being the younger sibling that is taken care of, even if she tries to deny/protest/avoid it.

By the end of this chapter, Hibari is twelve.

What do you guys think of Niwaka? I wanted to portray her as two-faced, but not particularly mean. Someone who was walking a very thin line between "good" and "bad." She definitely knows how to lie, and no one, not even Hibari, can find out if she's lying or not. She's an incredibly selfish person who wanted Hibari all to herself, like a pet dog, but one whose owner loves more than other humans. She was also looking to replace her younger sister who died, but it didn't quite work out. We'll never quite figure out what her real intentions were, what she was really thinking or intending when she gave Hibari sleep medication, how much she lied to Hibari, how much she really loved her. Those answers died with Niwaka forever. I will give you this much though; the elder that Niwaka killed was the one who used the curse seal on a child. Said child was Niwaka's little sister.

The reason why I glossed over Hibari's drug withdrawal and made it seem so short was that, one, I imagine chakra helps things along tremendously, and two, Hibari doesn't want to think about that time. I hope I wasn't being too unrealistic; I'm aware drug withdrawal in horrible in real life. There was a lot to juggle in this chapter.

The whole adoption thing isn't over; it'll come up one more time.

You might notice that she doesn't seem to think much about her previous life anymore. There's a reason for that, I promise.

Next up, kenjutsu training and the Kyuubi attack!


	5. Manji

**Warnings:** Ummm war again, so think chapter one, but a lot less. Character death. Same-sex romance (Yuri) THERE'S YOUR WARNING K THANKS

**Word Count:** ~3k

**Summary:** A self-insert who's main priority is to survive, whose morality is as straight as a double rainbow, who is literally thrust into a war at the physical age of ten and has more mental issues than the hair ties that she keeps on losing. And she thought university was hard. SI OC, third shinobi war and onwards. A series of interconnected stories, not in chronological order.

Unbeta'd.

* * *

**Strange Days and Stranger Nights**

_Manji_

_(In which Hyuuga Niwaka goes through life.)_

Hyuuga Niwaka is born three years after the second ninja war erupts. She is the daughter of two branch family members, a clan civilian and a compound guard.

Her parents find her eerie the moment she is born; she does not cry, does not fuss. She only makes minimal noise when in discomfort and is a ridiculously easy baby to take care of. Everyone else is just glad that no one will be woken up at 3am to yet another baby screaming. Despite this, she is a loving daughter, and her father is more than happy to dote on her (her mother insists that no one in the clan will coddle her once she becomes branded and she just get used to the harsh realities of life as soon as she can).

* * *

The war intensifies. In its seventh year, when Niwaka is four, the newly named Sannin battle Hanzo and gain their infamous nickname. Her parents fight over whether she should become a ninja or not. Her father insists that she does not have to become a ninja; she can train to be a servant instead, and stay safe within the compound walls (her father was always the more optimistic one).

That same year, she is branded with the clan's signature curse seal (it _hurts_).

A year later, Niwaka takes a look at how the branch family servants are treated by (most) main family members and politely asks when she can enter the academy. Her mother displays a rare expression of pride and smugness.

* * *

She enters the academy at the age of six and soon becomes a sort of prodigy, right after the oh-so-great Uchiha in her class. She is intelligent and quick to learn and excels in taijutsu. She masters the kunoichi arts perfectly. Her teachers sing praises and constantly fawn over her (This is when she begins to learn how to milk each smile, each laugh, each word, and get what she wants).

That same year, her mother gives birth to another child, a little girl named Nari who enters the world a month too early, screaming for breath. Secretly, her mother is relieved that this child is normal, even if she is sickly. The baby is too noisy and smelly for Niwaka's liking and she takes to spending more time outside, practicing and refining her jyuuken with the other branch family children.

* * *

Hyuuga Hiashi and Hizashi visit just once. The twins are sixteen, and chuunin. Niwaka notes how close they are, despite the rift between the branch and main family. She wonders how long that unity will last. Both are expected to marry within the next two years and there has been no end of discussion over who will become their betrothed. Personally, Niwaka finds the gossip dull, but listens to it anyways. One never knows when information will become useful.

* * *

Niwaka graduates in two years as kunoichi of the year and is placed on a team with the Uchiha and the deadlast of the team, an orphan. The Uchiha is alright; he acknowledges her strength (after she displayed it by delivering a harsh jyuuken-style beating), even if he occasionally displays misogynistic tendencies (he'll learn). Both of them are mature enough to put aside their family feud and smart enough to act aloof with each other in public.

The year that she graduates, there is a kidnapping attempt on the Uzumaki princess, Kushina. She is rescued by an eleven-year-old prodigious orphan by the name of Namikaze Minato. The attraction between the two of them seems to be obvious to everyone except for the involved parties, much to the dismay of Minato's fanclub (and the Uchiha, who has a secret-but-not-so-secret crush on the redhead). Kushina bounces back from the kidnapping attempt with even more vigor, throwing herself into her training. And finally, the war ends.

* * *

Niwaka becomes a chuunin two years later (the Uchiha on the team was promoted in the previous exams); along with yet another genius named Hatake Kakashi, a brat four years her junior. It irks her just a bit. Her sister is four years old now and no longer as smelly (but still as noisy as ever). Little Nari adores her big cool ninja sister and follows her around whenever she is actually in the compound, trying to emulate her. It leads to a small accident when she sees Niwaka walking on water.

Their mother forces them to spend time together when she falls ill and cannot be in close proximity with her children. Niwaka learns that her sister is much more skilled than everyone gives her credit for. It's most likely because her older sister is so skilled; rather than help nurture Nari's potential, they compare them constantly and put her down instead, chipping away at the four year old's already diminishing self-confidence. Niwaka sends the rest of her clan a proverbial middle finger when she helps her little sister refine her Jyuuken and takes pleasure in watching a startled tutor fall on his ass when Nari actually manages to get a hit through the man's much too relaxed guard. That will teach him to not take his job seriously.

Nari is eager to please and learns quickly; much quicker that even Niwaka when she was four. She becomes a prodigy in her own right, only her frail body stopping her from going even further, and their mother downright preens over her daughters and how much better they are than everyone else's children in the clan (the family head has not yet had children). Niwaka spends more and more time with her little sister, making up for the first four years of neglect when she thought the little girl would be useless. Nari is delighted and does her best to please her idol and big sister. When Nari cries after being branded with the curse seal, Niwaka holds her and sings her to sleep.

* * *

When Niwaka is twelve, Hatake Sakumo fails a mission and inadvertently begins the third ninja war. He suicides a few weeks later. In the tension and stress of preparing for a war that they are desperately not ready for so soon after the last one, no one grieves. No one but a small seven-year-old orphan who cries alone at night for a week before locking away his emotions and donning a mask to hide his identity on the battlefield that he will no doubt be called to.

Niwaka herself gives her family a big hug and kisses and departs with her team to the frontlines. The Uchiha proves his clan's fiery reputation by felling a dozen enemies with a single well-placed giant fireball and the orphan discovers he actually has really, really good aim and eyesight after several years of training. Then again, with an Uchiha and Hyuuga on their team, anyone would think they had only average, if not horrible eyesight, and when your teammate has the byakugan, there's no way you're hitting them with a projectile they can see coming before you've even thrown it.

* * *

The orphan gets stabbed in the stomach. He doesn't make it. The Uchiha scoffs and simply insists that he was too weak, but she sees him crying silently in the dark, unfamiliar chakra swirling around his eyes, with her byakugan when it's her turn to patrol. No one can stay emotionless when they lose family, and team is as good as family, especially for them. They'd been together for four years. The orphan had just been promoted before the war. They'd gone out for tea, because apparently ice cream was too childish for an Uchiha (they'd made him pay for the tea). Niwaka herself discovers she doesn't handle loss well when she more or less slaughters the enemy the next day, using her byakugan and a single kunai retrieved from the orphan's pouch. The Uchiha nods approvingly, his newly awakened blood-red sharingan eyes sweeping the field.

* * *

They return after six months. The Uchiha is praised heavily by his clan for awakening his sharingan. Niwaka welcomes the small but growing arms of her sister. She spends the evening relaxing and listening to her sister's loud, cheerful voice as she talks about random things. She keeps her sane for the next four months as she prepares to return to war.

* * *

When they return to the war, each are them are deployed to different locations. Niwaka proves again and again the Hyuuga clan's strength. She fights. She rests. She fights again. Rests again. Time blurs until six months finally comes to an end again. She acquires many scars and takes to wearing a yukata to hide the physical ones. The Uchiha does the same.

The mental scars are a bit trickier to hide but they manage.

* * *

For the first time, she gets into an argument with her mother, who wants to send Nari to the academy. They don't scream or shout but it's a close thing on both ends. Niwaka's mother has never been to war. She associates it with honor and glory and proving one's worth. Niwaka associates it with blood and flesh and flying limbs and never ever ever wants that for her little sister.

"I will not let Nari enter the academy," she says to her mother. She knows Nari will do anything she says.

Her mother slaps her.

She goes to her father with a red cheek and a sweet smile and convinces him to not allow Nari to enter the academy, lest she graduate early and be pushed into the war. She explains her reasons to Nari before their mother can poison her with lies. Nari is upset at being forced to stay and train in the compound but obeys.

"I love you," Niwaka says. Nari beams, the small pout falling off of her face right away. The little girl swings her arms around her sister's neck and plants a kiss on her cheek.

"I love you too, Niwaka-nee!" Niwaka hugs the little girl tightly and swears to her herself that she will never, ever, ever let anything happen to her, even if she has to lock her away forever.

* * *

When she comes back from war a third time, her little sister has been killed by her own clan. Killed by the seal on her small forehead when she tried to stand up for another branch family member who was being punished for landing an accidental near-lethal hit on a main family member during a spar. Her name won't be carved on the memorial stone. She isn't even given a proper funeral. Her body has long been confiscated by the time Niwaka is home. Her mother falls apart with grief and blames Niwaka for her death.

"If only," she mourns, "If only you'd let her go to the academy. She wouldn't have been there; she wouldn't have been killed." Niwaka isn't sure if she's madder at the clan (for killing her sister) or her mother (for being right). Her father isolates himself when he's not working, drowning his sorrows in alcohol. Niwaka herself spends almost all her time in the Konoha general library and archives, studying up poisons. She's almost glad when she can finally return to the war. She no longer sees monsters in the war anymore – they're nothing compared to the monsters in her own clan. She also stops wearing her forehead protector on her forehead. She doesn't wrap it, either. It's caused some strange looks and double takes but she doesn't care.

* * *

She's fifteen now, and has just been promoted to jounin. When she comes back, she is all pleasant smiles and the model of a perfect kunoichi and Hyuuga clan member. She's always been charming; now, when she's actively putting her mind to it, she's downright manipulative and almost no one notices. She moves into a different clan house in the compound, away from her parents. She becomes friends with many people in her clan without any of them realizing her relationship with the next person. She comforts them when they are sad, and celebrates with them when they are happy. She digs her claws deeper and learns how to direct their emotions to her advantage. She sets people up, breaks them apart, and revels in it. She studies poisons obsessively in her spare time. An elder dies of a heart complication.

Oh, she loves her clan alright. She loves to hate them.

* * *

She returns to the war. She gets a pleasant surprise.

"A Hyuuga, huh?" The wild-eyed, fanged woman with red upside-down triangle marks on her cheeks can only be an Inuzuka. "I've always thought your clan's eyes were seriously creepy, as useful as they are." She's the field commander, years of war experience going as far back as the last years of the second ninja war when she was just a pup. Inuzuka Kyouko is wild and crass and _strong_, so unbelievable strong with her huge wolf-like hound at her side. She doesn't give a shit about formality and is fair to all of the soldiers under her command (she fondly refers to them as her pack and call all of them her pups). She wears clothes that are red and brown and white and black; so much colour, so unlike a Hyuuga's usual mostly-white outfits. There's absolutely no one like her in the Hyuuga clan; she's beauty and power incarnate, mixed together into the shape of a gorgeously toned and muscled body, and Niwaka is pretty sure this is love.

The woman points a finger at her.

"To the rear, pup. I've got the front; you'll be our eyes in the back." Niwaka obeys, fighting to not swoon. The six months end much too soon.

(Somewhere in the back of her head, Niwaka wonder's what it means that she would gladly murder another enemy ninja just to spend some more time with Kyouko.)

* * *

They say that love can heal all wounds. Perhaps this is true, even for one-sided love. At least for Niwaka, when she comes back, she finds she doesn't hate her clan as much. It's not as satisfying to toy with them anymore, mocking them from her mind. What's much more satisfying is thinking about Kyouko. About her low rumbling voice, her blazing, spikey mess of hair, the impish grin in her eyes when she manages to startle one of her pups or wins yet another arm wrestling match. The Hyuuga clan is so _pale_ and _dull_ compared to Kyouko, and she can't help but pity them. The pity turns into fond affection, similar to what one would have towards a little bird or kitten. _Look at them, trying to be all regal and proper, as though that will make them stronger. So silly. So cute_.

* * *

She's more than a little bit disappointed when she isn't assigned to Kyouko again when she returns to the war. But then she spots a shock of long black hair, falling down the little girl's back so much like Nari's that it punches the breath out of her lungs.

Then the girl turns around and Niwaka isn't sure if she's glad or disappointed that the girl isn't Nari.

The girl's eyes are haunted and her pose screams that she doesn't want to be there. By all rights, she shouldn't be. But she has the flak jacket, two sizes too big for her, and the konoha hitai-ate, so Niwaka says nothing and simply watches.

It becomes clear that this girl – an orphan named Hibari, if the gossip is correct – is nothing like Nari. Where Nari was cheerful and confident, this girl is quiet and withdrawn, trying hard to not attract any attention to her. Where Nari was fluid and firm, this girl's movements are hard and a tad jerky and more than once break bones.

Even so, when an Iwa-nin tries to decapitate the little girl, Niwaka is suddenly there, swiftly disposing of the ninja with two harsh jyuuken strike to the heart. And then the girl is at her back, fending off another three Iwa-nin, and for the rest of their time together in the war, they fight back-to-back like this.

* * *

When Hibari wakes up screaming, Niwaka is there right away. But Hibari isn't Nari, and that's the only reason she's able to hand her a small white pill that she would never have handed to Nari (she just really wanted the screaming to stop).

* * *

Niwaka tries not to get her confused with Nari, but it's difficult and requires constant reminders, especially when Hibari's eyes light up impishly the same way Nari's did when Niwaka used to sneak her a piece of cake. The more time she spends with the orphan, the more the lines between Hibari and Nari blur.

It's been so long since Nari's death, but every time Niwaka looks at Hibari and reminds herself that she isn't Nari, it feels like she's lost her little sister all over again. Especially when Nari only ever turned to her, but Hibari turns to two other men that she calls her big brothers.

_You could keep her_, an insidious voice from within whispers into her ear. She resists the voice for a month. Then she begins plotting.

* * *

"Please leave, Niwaka-nee."

"You're the one I can't trust anymore."

The words are a kunai to the gut, followed by drowning and electrocution. She'd know; she's experienced them all separately at one time or another.

_Nari would never say that,_ she thinks.

She leaves without a word.

* * *

Before Hyuuga Hiashi can activate her curse seal, she breaks free of her restraints and stabs herself three times in the heart with expertly placed jyuuken strikes. She coughs blood all over the pristine wood floors and dies laughing at the aghast looks on the elder's faces. She's had the last laugh.

* * *

"You're an idiot, Niwaka-nee."

"I know." Niwaka strokes Nari's head fondly.

_I know._

* * *

_In a small apartment room, there's a piece of wood lying upright in a corner. There's a list of names carved into the wood. The last one reads, Niwaka._

* * *

**A/N**

So, a brief interlude, all written from Niwaka's perception, which leaves a lot to interpretation. There are still a lot of questions I've left unanswered; how much did she love Hibari for who she was and not for the fact that she looked like Nari? Was she replacing Nari or did she see Hibari as a second little sister? She's good at fooling others, but was she also in a way fooling herself? Did she really stop hating the Hyuuga clan? The answer is whatever you guys, the readers, want it to be. I don't think even Niwaka herself would know the answer to most of those questions.

The next update might take much longer, maybe two weeks; I'm going on vacation soon.


End file.
